


A Million Little Pieces

by Imogen_Penn



Category: 8 - Fandom, Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, I love you guys, One Shot Collection, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt, you prompt the best stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:26:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 23,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/pseuds/Imogen_Penn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bits and pieces written in response to tumblr prompts. I love prompts. I love writing things that don't take me a year to finish.</p><p>*** New fics! As of January 8, 2017***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Those Shoes (Darcy / Steve)

**Author's Note:**

> For icouldbesleeping: Darcy finds out that she and Pepper wear the same shoe size and Steve reaps the benefits

Steve heard the staccato click of a pair of expensive heels on the tile floor of the hallway and almost unconsciously straightened up in his seat.

He had been living in Stark Tower for a while now, and that noise meant only one thing. Pepper Potts.

She was very good about respecting the space of the four of them who lived in the Tower, he Clint, Natasha and Bruce, so the fact that she was here in their space probably meant a meeting, a message, or a mission.

He turned off the TV and stood to greet her, but it wasn’t Pepper.

No, it was not Pepper _at all_. Pepper was a beautiful woman, but she was all angles and sharp brightness. The woman reaching for something on a high shelf in the kitchen was curves and shadows and warm brown hair like silk. He couldn’t help himself from following the tailored curve of her blazer down her back, over her hips, to the slight flare at the hem of her skirt, down the seams of her stocking, to a pair of shoes that made his mouth go dry.

He had never really thought much about the shoes that women wore. And really, there was nothing particular about these shoes that should set them apart. He liked the line of them, a smoothly arcing curve under the arch, rounded toes, an architecturally graceful heel tapering to the floor, four inches clad in leather that shouldn’t be that special.

But her could see the way they made the woman’s calves stretch, the way the smooth line of her leg flowed through the shoe like a carefully chosen stroke of a pencil, the way her ass lifted under her skirt, the hint of red on the sole of the shoe as she rolled up on her toes, straining to reach… pop tarts?

“Darcy?” the word came out half choked.

She whirled around with a startled yelp, but then smiled in relief. “Steve! Scare a girl to death why don’t you!”

“Sorry…sorry…I just…ahhh,” Steve stammered helplessly. Darcy had taken over as Tony’s assistant about three months ago now. She came over to watch movies sometimes, met them out at the bar on the weekends. He liked her. He liked her a lot. She was funny and friendly and didn’t take any crap from Tony. He would have easily admitted that she was cute as hell up to about five minutes ago. She tended towards jeans and sneakers and sweaters that swamped her frame. She was comfortable and casual and Steve was fairly certain that one of these days soon he was going to work up the nerve to ask her out for a drink.

 _This_ Darcy though? She made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. And he didn’t mind it at all.

He realised that he was staring and she was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“You don’t usually…wear…those……..shoes,” he finished lamely.

“Oh! Right,” she said with a sheepish smile. “Needed to tag along to some meetings this morning. Had to suit up. Plus, it turns out Pepper and I wear the same size shoes,” she wiggled an ankle at him and he started reciting baseball stats in his head. “I look a bit silly, I know. Like I’m playing dress up as an adult.”

“No!” he exclaimed. She looked at him in surprise. “No, you don’t look silly at all.” He finished.

He could see her cheeks flush, but she looked away, picking at her skirt like she was embarrassed, like she didn’t believe him.

Well, Steve wasn’t about to let that stand.

 “You look really, good actually,” he took a few steps towards her. “It’s kind of intimidating.”

She looked up at him, blinking. “Intimidating?”

He cleared his throat nervously. He could feel his palms starting to sweat. Oh god, he was going to do this, wasn’t he? “I think it’s the shoes mostly. You normally wear those red sneakers with the blue laces.”

“You noticed my _sneakers_?”

“I like ‘em,” he said with a shrug, “First pair of new shoes I ever bought was a pair of Chuck Taylors.”

“So, you are into shoes or something?” she was looking at him like he was about to grow a third eye.

“No!” he exclaimed, “No I just…” he let out a sigh, running his hand through his hair. “I am just terrible at this,” he muttered mostly to himself.

“Terrible at what Steve?” she asked, but she wasn’t looking at him like he was crazy anymore. Instead she kind of seemed…hopeful?

“Well, I’ve kinda been working up the nerve to ask you out,” he finally managed. “I was getting pretty close, but those shoes knocked me back a step.”

“What’s wrong with these shoes?” she asked, a smile tugging at her lips.

“Not a thing, it’s more the way that your legs…I mean,” Steve stuttered to a stop, “Not that I was looking at your…well, obviously I was but…”

“So the shoes are getting in the way of your nerve are they?” Darcy asked with her familiar confident smirk, and she toed off the shoes, her head barely reaching his shoulder in her stocking feet. “S’that better?”

Steve grinned, and suddenly she seemed comfortable again, not because she lost the shoes, but because he remembered that he knew her. “It’s a start,” he said slowly. “Not sure you’ll ever stop making me nervous, Miss Lewis, but I think I’m going to have to ask you out anyways.”

“Well, if it helps, I’m going to say yes,” she grinned and took a step towards him.

He may not know much about women, but he knew better than to pass up a signal like that, so he bent his head, brushed his hand against her face, and kissed her. It was a simple thing really, but her lips were soft and warm, and her hand fell against his waist and her hip was solid under his hand. He felt a bit breathless as he pulled away.

“Have dinner with me?” he finally managed to murmur.

“Yes,” she said immediately. “I’ll even see if I can borrow another pair of shoes from Pepper.”

Steve looked at her quizzically.

“Well those ones worked out pretty well for me,” she gestured at the heels on the floor behind her, “and they’re nothing compared to the rest of her collection.”


	2. Who's that girl? (Darcy / Pepper)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anonymous prompt for Darcy / Pepper.

“So did you really make it through that whole two iron dudes showdown thing in Louboutins without breaking a heel?”

The curvy brunette sat across the conference table from her, her head resting on her hand, glasses slipping down her nose, a wide eyed and innocent expression on her face, looking for all the world like she didn’t know about her recent and disastrous breakup with said “iron dude”. But everybody knew. It was plastered all over every media outlet in the known world.

Pepper sighed heavily, pressing her thumb into the bridge of her nose to try and hold back a growing headache.

“I’m sorry,” she tried to maintain her professionalism, “who are you again?”

“Darcy Lewis,” she said with a wide grin, holding out her hand. Pepper was so nonplussed by the total lack of guile that she took it without thinking.

“And why are you here?” she asked after a moment, dropping the other woman’s hand that, she realised, she was still holding.

“Phil’s assistant,” she filled in promptly.

“Ah,” said Pepper, turning her face down to her notes. Finding another liaison between Stark Industries and SHIELD was turning out to be a bit of a nightmare. She was sure this was her sixth meeting on the subject this week. But the sooner she could stop having any direct contact with Tony Stark, the better.

“So, is it true you saved Tony Stark’s life after that whole extremis thing?”

“Ms. Lewis,” Pepper put on her sternest voice and glared at Darcy across the table, “I assume that Agent Coulson did not hire you to _gossip_. I’m sure you can find enough articles on the famous Tony Stark to satisfy your curiosity when you are _not_ speaking to his ex.”

“Tony Stark?” she blinked up at Pepper in surprise, “Why the hell would I want to know about Tony Stark? The guy’s an asshole.”

“Oh,” all the venom drained right out of her in her surprise, “then why are you…?”

Darcy grinned, and Pepper could swear she saw a flush creeping up her neck. “I have been bringing Phil his favorite coffee every day for two week to bribe my way into this meeting,” she paused, biting her lip. Pepper noticed, with a surprising degree of fascination, that she recognised the deep red of her lipstick.

“Why?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Darcy gave a helpless little shrug, “I might be a bit of a fan.”

It was charming and unexpected and the first bright spot in the most miserable two weeks of her life thus far.

“Can I take you for coffee after the meeting?” the words were out of her mouth before she even thought about them. But Pepper Potts, CEO never did anything unplanned. So she sat with a carefully composed expression while Darcy Lewis stared at her in open mouthed surprise. She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at a corner of her lips.

“Uh, yeah. I mean _of course_ , I just…yeah. Yes. Thank you.” Darcy finally stammered to a halt, the blush definitely visible now, high on her cheekbones.

The door swung open and Agent Coulson strolled in. “Sorry I’m late, Pepper. I see you’ve met my assistant Ms. Lewis.”

“Yes,” she said with a measured smile, casting her eyes back at Darcy who was still looking flushed and nervous, “we got acquainted.”

Phil looked from her to Darcy and then back to her with a raised eyebrow.

“Did you break her, Ms. Potts?” he asked with an arch expression.

“Not yet, Phil. Now, shall we get started.”


	3. A little space (Darcy / Steve + Darcy / Clint)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for meri. This is probably not what you meant when you wanted fluff and UST after Darcy has a bad day. But you said the magic AU word, and I am working on a space AU, so then this happened :)

“Lewis, are you…” Steve keyed open the door to the utility bay, where a cramped med unit shared limited space with the vacuum suits and spare tools. He froze immediately, because whatever he had been expecting, it was not an eyeful of Darcy’s top half covered only by her bra, her shirt ragged and hanging off one arm.

“Oh…uhhhh,” he froze, stammering stupidly.

“Goddamit Rogers, it’s _occupied_ ,” she hissed at him, wrapping one arm around herself.

“Well then lock the door,” he shot back. Dammit. He was _trying_ to be nice here.

“Sorry, _Captain_ ,” she drawled back at him, “I was a little busy dealing with the hole in my shoulder that I got saving your ass.”

“Saving _my_ ass?” he asked incredulously, “it _that_ what you were doing?”

She let out a loud huff of frustration, “Look, can we do this another time Rogers, I’m a bit busy.” She pointedly turned her back to him and started tugged carefully at what was left of her ruined shirt. Something seemed to give and the material fell off her shoulder. Darcy let out a low curse, but he didn’t hear what it was, he was too busy swearing himself.

“ _Jesus_ , Lewis,” he muttered, “I thought you said it was just a scratch?” A long, deep furrow was cut diagonally across the white skin of her shoulder blade, half blackened and cauterised from the laser bolt that did it, but still weeping blood that was pooling, running in small rivulets down her side.

“It’s _fine_ Rogers,” she said stiffly, “nothing any of you needed to worry about. I know you think I’m just some academy washout who doesn’t know how to handle herself in a fight, but I can do this.” As if to prove it, she reached for the med kit across from her, but the pull of her movement sent a fresh swell of blood down her back and drew new and exciting swear words from her.

“Sit _still_ Lewis,” he said sharply, more concerned than he cared to admit. He took a few steps towards her, and he could see now that she had cut off her shirt. The left side was soaked all down the back with drying blood. Goddamn her. She should have said something earlier. She always had to tough it out didn’t she, could never just ask for help when she needed it.

She curled her good arm protectively around herself as he came closer. He didn’t like it much. Whether he had planned for it or not, she was on his team now. She clearly didn’t trust him. Didn’t seem to _like_ him all that much either. He wasn’t sure, at the moment, which one stung him less.

He reached for the kit anyways though, setting down beside her and popping it open.

“You know what did it?” he asked brusquely, tearing open a wipe as he began cleaning the blood from the curve of her waist. He tried not to think about how smooth the taut skin felt under his fingers.

“One of the crappy standard issue dominion blasters,” she said tightly. He could feel the tension in her muscles under his hand, but she wasn’t moving away from him. “s’why it didn’t even cauterize properly,” she scoffed.

“Well,” Steve said carefully as he pulled a tube of antibacterial gel from the kit, “You’ll probably have less of a scar this way.”

She let out a mocking laugh, and then winced, “like I care about a few more scars Rogers,” she said, and it didn’t even sound to him like she was saying it to be tough. She paused for a moment, “is it going to fuck up the plan? Am I gonna be able to move my arm tomorrow?”

She sucked in a breath as he smoothed the gel over the wound as carefully as he could. He was somewhat surprised that she was even thinking about their next step, especially since she had been so vocally against it from the beginning. He was starting to think that his first impression of her had been way off.

“It’ll probably hurt like a bitch Lewis,” he said honestly, “but it doesn’t look like it severed any major muscles. You should be okay.” He ripped opened a bandage and placed it carefully over the injury, trying not to pay too much attention to the swell of her breast as he pressed the edge down carefully against her collar bone.

She shifted experimentally.

“Not bad Rogers,” she said grudgingly, turning to face him “thanks.”

He thought that it was maybe the first real thing she’d ever said to him. She could be so defensive some times. He understood it, he did. She’d have to be hard, unreachable in her line of work. But he couldn’t seem to help throwing himself against her walls.

And here she was, saying thank you like a normal person, nothing but that wariness that never left her on her face, half naked and smelling like blood and burnt ozone. He had to smile. Of course she would be at her most open after bleeding half to death from a laser blast.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and then started pulling off his sweater.

“Rogers, what the hell are you…” she stopped as he handed it over to her. “Oh, right.” She looked a little embarrassed, as if she had forgotten she was half dressed, as she pulled the sweater over her head gingerly. “Thanks.”

“Well,” he said awkwardly, wiping off his hands and replacing the med kit, “I should…” he gestured over his shoulder. It wasn’t his shift on watch at all. Clint had just sat down on the bridge a few minutes ago, but the already small room was starting to feel tiny.

“Right,” Darcy said absently, carefully collecting her ruined shirt. “I’m your relief at 1200. I think I’m going to sleep, so just page if I’m not there.”

She scooted out of the room more quickly than someone suffering from that much blood loss should reasonably be able to.

Steve was feeling restless though, so he wandered up to the cockpit and slung himself into the co-pilot’s seat beside Clint. They watched the stars streak past in silence for a long while.

“Darce okay?” said Clint after a while.

“Yeah,” he said evenly, “beat up worse than she told us, but she’ll be fine.”

Clint sighed, “she’s always got to be so tough,” but he had a fond expression on his face. “Maybe I should…” he made to get up, but Darcy herself appeared at the doorway.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said evenly, “Putting on some coffee, you want?”

Steve nodded. Darcy was the only one who could wring a decent cup of coffee out of the ship’s mess. Well, he supposed, it was _her_ ship after all. Sometimes he thought the _Andromeda_ was as prickly as her Captain about new people.

She walked back out, and it was only when the door slid shut behind her that he realised Clint was glaring at him.

“Rogers,” he asked in a flat voice, “what the hell is my girl doing wearing your sweater?”

Well, shit.


	4. I got Trouble in my Town (Clint / Darcy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I recently found out that I was apparently the only one in the world who didn't know that Renner was a sexy sexy cowboy with guyliner in a pink video. I watched it. I pretty much immediately churned this out. I blame Britt :)

“Clint,” her voice was low and just a little bit scared from behind the bars. They had had to make due, and this small town jail was the closest thing to containment that the ass end of Eastern Europe had to offer.

Coulson didn’t seem to think it was going to be enough, which is why Clint was sitting just beyond the bars, wondering how the hell Darcy Lewis had wound up behind them. Last he remembered she was Foster’s sweet and snarky assistant in New Mexico. 

He had run her background, nothing interesting came up. He had looked at her with intent one night from under the brim of a cowboy hat in a bar. She had blushed and looked away. 

He had written her off.

But apparently something she had done had a) brought her to a hot zone in Eastern Europe and b) rung some pretty serious alarm bells for Coulson, so he was sitting and watching.

“Clint,” she tried again, “I get that something really weird is going down. Mostly because I don’t know how I got here from London, but d’you think you could un-cuff me? It really hurts,” her voice wobbled a bit like she was brazening it out. 

He felt a bit sorry for her. Not enough to fully swallow her story, but enough to at least take a closer look. The angle she had managed to twist her arms into did look painful. She looked scared. 

She still looked like the kind of girl he’d like to look at with intent though. Apparently they’d picked her up in the back room of some sort of underground casino. Her dress pushed her tits up and narrowed her waist. Her red lipstick was faded and smudged, and her eyes black rimmed and swimming.

He blew out a breath. “Yeah,” he said, “but I can’t let you out of here. Orders.” If nothing else, it would probably help the interrogation if she thought he was on her side.

He opened the door to the cell and closed it behind him, not taking any chances.

He kept one hand between her shoulder blades as he undid the cuffs, ready to push her off balance if she tried anything, but she just let her arms drop to her sides, rubbing at her wrists as her shoulders started to shake.

“Awww, hey,” he said, unexpectedly drawn in by her obvious distress, “It’ll be okay. Whatever happened, we’ll work it out.”

She turned with a little sob and pressed her face against his shoulder. He was kind of used to it, especially from civilians who had seen him in action. Something about the broad shoulders and the lines around his eyes made people trust him. He was used to using it to his advantage. He wasn’t so used to enjoying it this much.

She was soft and warm and it had been way too long since Clint had had his hands on a woman. His hands fell to her hips almost unconsciously.

She tipped her face up to look at him, a tear tracking down her cheek making her look heartbreakingly vulnerable. He was just about to step away when she carefully, tentatively, rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. 

This was a bad idea. He knew that even as it was happening. But her little fists were clutching the neck of his shirt and her breasts were pressing into his chest and she was making low noises at the back of her throat. 

Clint was never much good at following orders when he didn’t want to.

He slid his hands up her sides, pressing his tongue into her mouth, biting at her full lower lip. One hand reached her breast and cupped the full weight of it, running a thumb over her nipple and swallowing her gasp. The other pressed down along her spine, over her ass, to clutch at her thigh, pulling it up around his waist so he could press his erection into her.

She let out a low moan and backed up until her knees hit the cot in the cell, sinking into it and pulling him after her. He rocked his hips against her as he tore his mouth away from hers and sucked at the smooth white skin of her throat.

“Clint,” she let out in a low breathy voice, “please.” She circled his wrist and pushed it towards her center. He was happy to oblige.

He let out a lot curse when he found she wasn’t wearing panties under that sinfully short dress. She was soaked for him. 

He pressed two fingers into her tight cunt and she gasped, throwing her head back, one hand rising to cup her breast, toying with her nipple through the fabric.

Clint huffed out a breath and gripped her other breast as he bent his mouth to hers again, his thumb finding her clit as he thrust his fingers into her, searching for the right angle, just the right curl.

God he wanted to fuck her, was going to fuck her. It wouldn’t be the craziest thing he’d ever done by far. But he could still be a gentleman about it, get her off first. 

By the way she was making desperate little cries every time he pushed into her, it wasn’t going to take much longer. He added another finger, groaning as she flexed around him.

“Come on,” he whispered into her ear, “Come for me.”

He felt her tense and shake as her orgasm rushed over her, slackening and twitching against his hand as the last tremors settled.

“Hmmmm,” she hummed, skimming a hand down his hips to the button of his fly and popping the button. “My turn?” she asked, almost timidly as she worked his zipper down and wrapped her hand around his cock.

Clint let out a low curse in agreement.

And then he heard a harsh click and felt cold metal around his wrist.

She had just handcuffed him to the goddam sink.

She grinned up at him with a sharp expression and he knew at once that he had been played. 

“Well thanks for a real swell time,” she said with a wink, pulling herself out from under him. He was too railroaded to even think about stopping her right now, “I gotta say, I woulda taken you for a spin in New Mexico if I’d know how much fun it was gonna be. But I gotta run. Tell Phil I say hi, wont you?” and she just sauntered out the goddam front door.

He was sitting facing the wall when Phil found him, at least he had been able to tuck himself back in and make himself look somewhat presentable. He had been trying to will his absolutely raging hard on away with some success. Phil was still going to know exactly what happened.

“Had a little problem, did you Barton?” came Coulson’s cool voice from behind him.

“Yes, sir,” he answered tightly.

“Next time,” he said walking over to Clint and un-cuffing him, “perhaps you’ll listen when I tell you a subject is dangerous?”

“Yes, sir,” he gritted out.

“I’m sending you out after her Barton, because you’re the best we have in the area,” Phil looked at him with a raised eyebrow as he turned around and tried to flatten his hair. “If you find her, are you going to be able to hold onto her this time?”

“Absolutely, sir,” he positively growled.

Of course, he wasn’t going to tell Coulson that he’d also fuck her six ways from Sunday for as long as she was willing once he did get a hold of her, but he thought the other man might have some idea based on the erection that was still tenting his pants.

“Get the hell out of here Barton,” Coulson ordered.

He didn’t need to be told twice. He grinned, sharp and a little bit mean, as he made for his temporary barracks. 

This was going to be a hell of chase.


	5. Untitled (Darcy/Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Britt (noquirkyurl) Clint / Darcy Clint forced to take a vacation and has been directed to the Travel Management office -which is where Darcy has been stashed by SHIELD to keep her out of trouble.

“You’re sending me _where_?”

Phil Coulson looked startled. This was understandable, Clint supposed, because he had responded to things like “we’re sending you to Bogota to eliminate a group selling WMDs to terrorist cells” or “we’re sending you to Budapest to take out a Russian assassin who’s taken out six targets this week alone” with nothing more than a nod.

But this? This was unacceptable.

“We’re sending you on vacation, Barton,” Phil answered in a composed tone, although one eyebrow was floating up near his hairline. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

“Pleased?” his voice was harsh even to his own ears. “Phil, I haven’t had any free time since you roped me into this gig and that’s the way I like it. I don’t even know what people doon vacation. What do people _do_ , Phil?” Anyone else faced with an irate Hawkeye with his bow still in his hand might have flinched. Not Phil.

“Nevertheless,” Phil actually looked like he might be fighting back a grin, “it is SHIELD policy. You’ve logged too many combat hours in the last few months. Go down to travel management, they’ll set something up for you.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but then Phil did that little thing with his eyes, just a little facial tick that Clint knew well enough by now. It meant “don’t”.

“Will that be all, _sir_?” he ground out.

“That will be all Barton,” Phil was definitely grinning now. “Try to have some fun, will you?”

He didn’t respond, just turned on his heel and marched out. He went straight for travel management; there was no sense in putting it off. He’d never had reason to go there before, but there wasn’t an inch of the building he didn’t know.

Apparently, however, he hadn’t been quite as thorough with personnel.

There was an absolute stunning and stacked brunette in heels and skirt that was probably a little too short for the dress code leaning over her desk, obviously reaching for the pen lying in front of it. Why she didn’t just walk around the front, Clint would never know. Mind you, he wasn’t complaining. He was getting quite a view.

She snagged the pen and, with a triumphant exclamation, righted herself and fell back into her chair, cheeks flushed, glasses askew, a grin on her face that made him want to smile right back.

And then she saw him standing at the door of her office and her mouth dropped open in an almost comical expression of surprise and embarrassment.

“Oh shit, sorry, how long were you…never mind, hi. What do you need?” she stammered and stumbled through her little monologue and Clint’s grin grew wider.

It was the most _normal_ moment he’d been witness to in a long time. He never met anyone that got flustered or embarrassed anymore. Turns out, it can be fucking _charming_.

“Your name, for starters,” he said, walking closer to the front of her desk, his bow unstrung and unobtrusive at his side, “and then a vacation.”

“Darcy Lewis,” she said with a quizzical little grin, “and a vacation?”

“Some fuckin’ policy scheme to waste taxpayer dollars,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

Her eyes widened in surprise, “You logged enough combat time to hit the mandatory R&R limit?” she said. And then her eyes narrowed, she cocked her head to the side, cast her eyes down to the bow, and a look of understanding fell across her face. “Oh, of _course_ you have!” she said, her infectious grin back, “you’re Hawkeye!”

Clint gave a little bow, amused at her open enthusiasm.

“Well, you’ve caught the right travel planner,” she said, “usually we send the mandatory vaycay folks to an all-inclusive but you’d probably tear your eyes out of their sockets before the week was up, right?”

“Perceptive,” he said, mildly surprised as he leaned his bow up against her desk and leaned a hip against the edge

“Not really,” she smirked, “Thor talks about you guys all the time, even he notices that you can’t sit still for three seconds together.”

“How in the hell do you….” He started, then paused, sifting and collating information, “Ah right, Foster’s intern, isn’t it?”

She managed a passable imitation of his cocky bow from behind her desk.

He might have fallen a little bit in love with the wicked twist of her mouth.

“So how come I haven’t met you before? You never come out for drinks with Thor and Jane.”

“I’ve got my own circle here,” she said with an ever so slightly awkward grin as she started pulling up files on her computer, “I’m sure you guys have a hard enough time having a private drink as it is.”

“Hmmmm,” he said non commitally, an idea taking root in his head.

“So,” she turned her screen to face him, “we’ve got a little lodge up in the alps if you’re a skier; lots of fun toys like snow mobiles and glacier climbing equipment. Door number two is a little island off the coast of Mexico with awesome diving spots, good surf, and ruins and stuff to explore. You just gotta pick hot or cold.” She had a self-satisfied little grin on her face, and he could see why. He supposed that she would have to have a really good sense of how certain types of people like to travel. The bulk of her job was probably setting up travel arrangement for covers. The impressive and downright intriguing part was how good of a read she had on _him_.

 “You’re good, Lewis,” he said without a hint of sarcasm.

“I think they kill people who aren’t good at their jobs around here,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “So, hot or cold?”

“Hot,” he said, looking very intentionally and directly at her. That little idea that had taken root was growing into a plan.

“Okay,” she looked a little flushed, “I’ll set it up and send all your documents up by the end of the day. Leaving at the beginning of next week okay with you?”

“Hmmm, oh sure. I’ve got a better idea though.”

“A better idea about what?”

He grinned at her confusion, “Well, you were right.”

“Right about what?” she looked wary.

“It is hard to get a private drink in New York these days.”

She looked at him suspiciously as he reached over her desk to grab a post it, pressing into the edge of her personal space. He was gratified to note that she didn’t pull away. She also seemed to be staring at his arms. His grin ticked up a notch and he flexed ever so slightly.

“I know a place though,” he scribbled the address down on the note, “you could bring the documents to me there, maybe 8:00?”

“I…what?” she stumbled, flushed.

He grinned, “I’m asking you out for a drink,” he said, “I was trying to be cool about it.”

“Oh, well…I mean…yeah, yes. Okay.” Her nonplussed confusion was melting into a slow grin that send a tingling warmth straight through to his toes.

“Good,” he said, feeling foolishly pleased, trying to stop himself from grinning like an idiot. Deciding to get out before he did something stupid, he pushed away from her desk. “I’ll see you then,” he flashed her his most charming grin and turned to head off.

“Agent Barton?” the wry humor in her voice stopped him cold. “Forgetting something?” Awwww shit. He turned around slowly to see her standing in front of her desk, his bow in her hands. He blew out a breath and walked the few steps back to her desk.

“Ah well,” he said in resignation as he took the weapon from her, “you were probably going to find out that I tend to make an idiot of myself in front of beautiful women sooner or later anyways.”

 She grinned, broad and sunny, “Is it weird that it makes me like you more?”

“Probably,” he said, feeling oddly short of breath “but I like weird.” He couldn’t stop staring at her mouth. The moment was drawing out. He needed to say something, or _do_ something. He drifted a little closer to her and heard her draw in a little sighing breath as she leaned towards him.

“Lewis!” a harsh voice shattered the moment and they quickly moved apart, “where the hell are the flight plans for the San Diego op!” a beefy bald headed man was leaning out of a door down the hall and hollering at her.

Darcy rolled her eyes, “I suppose that’s my cue to get back to work,” she looked a little flushed.

“I suppose so,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll see you at 8?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” and there was a sincerity to it that made him smile.

It kept him smiling all the way back up to the range. In fact, he was still grinning when he ran into Phil later that afternoon.

“What are you smiling about Barton,” Phil asked suspiciously.

“Ah well, I turned around on this vacation thing Phil,” he said as he passed him, “best idea you’ve ever had.”

The look of resigned confusion on Phil’s face was almost as satisfying the thought of the woman waiting for him later that night. Almost.


	6. The London Eye (Darcy/Steve)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> un-betad smut. I make no apologies :) This one's for the lovely boneycircus on tumblr who prompted Darcy/Steve the London Eye.

“Captain,” said Darcy as calmly as she could, given the situation, “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, and I know this whole, like, Avenging thing is really your area of expertise and not mine, but we’re kind of in a big glass cage right now.”

“Just….” Steve held up a hand to silence her as he paced the small, enclosed space.

He had that look on his face, Darcy was getting to know it pretty well after a week of having him herd her around the greater London area in an attempt to either a) get her out of the country without the Hydra goons that had been trying to hunt her and Jane down finding out or b) drive her absolutely bat shit insane.

That look meant that one more well timed quip was going to drive him to do something rash.

One time he had walked out of the apartment they had holed up in for a whole hour. It wasn’t an experience Darcy particularly wanted to repeat. Captain grumpy pants might be a little prickly at times, but he was the one with the mad skills, and the wicked sense of humor he tried to smother in order to seem professional, and those fingers that were long and slender and gentle, and oh my god that ass.

She shook it off. He was still pacing.

“Well,” she tried encouragingly, “maybe they won’t look up?”

He ran a hand through his hair, “They’re going to look up,” he said, “it was a stupid idea. Dammit.” He kicked the side of the glass bubble they were in, which shook worryingly. “Everyone looks up at the god dammed London Eye. Even if they _weren’t_ tracking us they’d look up. This is my fault.” He sat down heavily. Darcy wasn’t quite sure he was actually talking to her, “If I hadn’t been so…”

Darcy couldn’t quite bring herself to wish she’d been stuck with Sam Wilson, who had gotten Jane out of the country and safely onto home soil days ago. Almost. But not quite.

“So…” she said slowly, “what are the chances that if they look up and scan the pods, they won’t see us?”

He turned to look at her sharply. He tilted his head to the side, like he had an idea. And then he shook it away.

“Not great,” he said dully. “Look, when I tell you, you’re going to run. Run back to the apartment we were at last night. There’s a gun in the freezer, and some cash. Is there anyone left in the city that you trust?”

“Look Captain,” she said determinedly, “that sounds like a solid back up plan. But you just had an idea face. What is it? Climbing on the outside of this thing or something? I can do it. If we need to do it, I can do it.”

He gave her this weird, indecipherable look. She’d been getting that look more and more from him as time went on. “No,” he said finally, “that would only make us more noticeable. A friend once said that…”

He trailed off. Jesus Christ, he looked like he was _blushing_. Darcy was intrigued.

“Dude,” she said, in an unashamedly wheedling tone, “we’re trying to save both our lives here, right? It can’t be that bad.”

“Well,” he shrugged, looking down, ostensibly scanning for their pursuers, “PDA’s make people very uncomfortable.”

She blinked twice. It really wasn’t what she had been expecting.

“So,” she said slowly, “the idea being that they walk under the London Eye, look up, see no one matching our description because our description doesn’t include making out, and keep moving?”

Steve nodded stiffly.

“Well,” she said, trying desperately to bite back a grin, “Sounds _way_ better than crawling on the outside of this monstrosity. My jacket is a different color in the inside, if that will help too?”

“I…what? I mean, yes. That’s a good idea. I can…” instead of explaining further, he stripped off his shirt, leaving him bare armed in a white tank top.

Any trace of a grin was wiped off Darcy’s face as she slowly stripped her jacket and put it back on with the striped lining on the outside. She also pulled the tie out of her hair for good measure. This had gone from a sort of amusing kind of thrill in the middle of a very serious week to somehow more serious than sprinting as fast as she could down an alley the other day from armed assassins, if the way her heart was racing was any kind of judge.

Look, she got that this could kind of be termed simply an inherently sexy situation. On the run from evil henchman ever since the Captain had both released their names on the internet to save the world (apparently) and showed up to save them in London. And yeah, let’s not lie here, the Captain was pretty sexy.

But _Steve_. Steve who had talked to her in a low, even voice, telling her stories about growing up in Brooklyn all the way through that first night when she had been shot at, separated from Jane, shivering in a dark attic hidey hole, unable to sleep.

Steve who had asked her once what she preferred for breakfast and, when she told him she liked sweet over salty, had made sure she had at least a little something sugary every day.

Steve who had slept on the cold board floors of wherever they were staying if there weren’t two beds.

The thought of kissing _him_ didn’t seem anywhere near simple.

“There they are,” he muttered, sliding around the bench until he was warm and solid beside her. She only had a second to see the disturbance of two men running into the square below before it was _Steve who was kissing her_.

For a moment, it was _weird_. There was no lead up, no leaning close over a drink, no pressing together on a dance floor, no late night texting, just his hand in her hair and his lips against hers.

She could feel the tension in him, the way he held himself apart, the way the kiss was nothing more than a press of lips against lips. And then his nose bumped against hers and his mouth parted in a brief gasp, and the thought passed through her mind, clear and solid: _fuck simple_.

Her hands clutched at the thin fabric of his tank top and she tentatively slid her tongue across the parted space between his lips.

It was like, with that simple movement, she had lit a fuse.

Steve let out a low noise that she felt more than heard as it rumbled through his ribs under her hands. His arms, which had been resting softly against her hips, pulled tight around her back, his big hands spread, tugging her closer.

She gave up all pretense of this being for show, which she thought was fair what with the way his tongue was in her mouth, and swung a leg over his so she sat astride him, the seam of her jeans pressing into his pelvis as her hands wound their way over his shoulders, gripping him tight to her.

Her fingers rand across the low hollow where his collar bone met his neck and she could _feel_ him twitch under her.

“Darcy,” he said breathlessly, his hands coming to rest on her hips. She wasn’t sure if he was holding her there or holding himself still, “I’m…”

“You’re thinking,” said Darcy, surprised at the throaty sound of her own voice. “We’ve got a half hour where there’s absolutely nothing we can do but _this_.” She emphasised her point by canting her hips against him gently, a heady swirl crawling up through her at the way his head tipped back and his eyes closed. “Let’s do the thinking part later, okay?”

He lifted his head up to look at her, his blue eyes steady and questioning. She tried to convey to him all the things she had learned about him in the short time they’d know each other: that she _liked_ him; that he was capable and strong, but also smart and funny; that she liked the moments when they were quiet together as much as she liked baiting him; that she _trusted_ him, even in this.

She must have communicated _something,_ because he was kissing her again, and there was nothing reserved about it. She spared a brief thought for the fact that they were incredibly exposed, in a glass bubble crawling upwards over the city, but tossed it aside. The feel of his skin under her hands as she worked her way under his shirt was so much more important.

“We still,” said Steve, breaking away from her mouth and working his way down her neck, “are trying _not_ to be seen.”

“Good…ahhh….point,” she managed to get out as his teeth closed carefully around the curve of her shoulder.

But his hand was crawling up her rib cage and carefully settling over her breast.

“You’re not helping,” she muttered, tucking her hands under the waist of his pants.

“Hmmm?” he asked absently, one wide thumb tracking deliberately over her nipple so she couldn’t help but gasp and arch towards him.

“I’ve been trying to avoid watching you change for days,” she said, wrapping an arm around one powerful shoulder so she could pull herself against his growing erection, “in all those tiny one room apartments. And now that we’re _here_ ,” she punctuated her comment with a deliberate press of her hips, “you’re telling me I can’t even look?”

He let out a low laugh, his hands wrapped around her hips pulling her into a slow, grinding rhythm she wasn’t even sure he was really aware of.

“Must be tough,” he said, without sounding very sympathetic, pausing to run teeth and tongue across her jawline, “I had to walk out of the goddam building to stop myself from throwing you up against a wall and kissing you senseless.”

“Wha…” she was cut off by Steve’s mouth, his teeth clacking against hers as he fisted a hand in her hair.

“I can’t _believe_ that’s why you walked out,” she said after a moment, both distracted by the press of hip to hip as they rocked against each other.  “I thought I had just pissed you off.”

“You drive me _crazy_ ,” he said, but she didn’t think it was a bad thing.

“Fuck, Steve.” She gasped, “I need…”

“ _Tell_ me,” he breathed against her neck.

Instead of answering, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and pulled one of his hands in between her thighs. Say what you will about the Captain’s old timey sensibilities, but Steve Rogers was very quick on the uptake.

It took an almost embarrassingly short length of time, after he flicked open the button on her jeans and worked two of his careful, well-articulated fingers down the front of her panties, for her to lose control, crying out his name as she jerked against his hand.

“We’re coming down,” he said after a moment, still breathing heavily, still hard against her thigh. “I don’t see them. If we can get to the airport…”

“Mmmmhmmm,” Darcy agreed with a lazy smile, “but we have some time left.” The slant of her lips turned wicked as she reached for the front of his pants.

“You don’t have to…” he started unconvincingly.

“Steve,” she said, pausing for a moment, “would it make you feel better if I told you that you’re gonna take me out for a nice dinner when we get back to the U.S.?”

“I am?” he asked, looking at her with a bemused but intoxicatingly focused expression.

“Yeah,” she said, leaning in to kiss him, this time soft and sweet, “I kinda like you, Rogers. I was hoping you might be okay with it if I stuck around for a while.”

“Yes. Yeah. Dinner. Okay,” he burst out with the words rapid fire, like he couldn’t get them out of his mouth fast enough. “I mean,” he looked at her a bit sheepishly, “Dinner sounds great.”

“Smooth,” she said, her hand at the buckle of his belt, “you’re lucky I like you better when you’re kind of a dork.”

His eyes slipped closed as she wrapped one hand around him, “Shit,” he breathed out, and she knew enough of him to know that that was pretty strong language.

She grinned.

“D’you think,” she tried out carefully as she carefully began to move her hand up the length of his erection, “that the people in the next bubble can see us?”

His eyes flicked open, meeting hers with fierce intensity, “Dunno,” he said in a low voice, “Maybe. Would you care?”

“What are they gonna do?” she said, the corner of her lips ticking up and her thumb spreading the beaded moisture it found across the silky skin under her fingers, “shoot us?”

+

+

In the end, they made it out of the country safely later that evening, with no more trouble than a raised eyebrow from the attendants at the base of the London Eye.

All in all, Darcy was happy to leave London behind. She was pretty sure that there was no beating her souvenir.


	7. A Heart in New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, a bunch of people asked for more in the Fighter Verse. I got thiiiiisssss close to posting the first chapter of the sequel in response, but I'm in the process of re-working it in the wake of Winter Soldier...so I didn't. Instead, I did this. I'm sorry for the shmoop. But it comes with smut??? I also reserve the right to make this AU in the future depending on how that whole sequel thing turns out....

  
  
"Darce," she could feel the shifting of the bed as Steve rolled over, pressing himself long and warm against her back, his breath at the back of her neck. "It's 7:45. Gus and Val are expecting us by 10:00..."  
  
Darcy could do the math in her head just as well as Steve. Counting backwards from the time they had agreed to meet the older couple for brunch, which was really 9:45 because Steve was terminally punctual, it meant leaving the house around 9:25 so they could have a leisurely walk over, maybe grab a coffee.   
  
That in turn meant getting out of bed by 8:45 so they both had time to shower and Steve could grab something to eat so he didn't advertise his super soldier sized appetite in front of their friends.   
  
In combination with the fact that she could see that 7:45 on the nose was blinking at her from the clock on her side of the bed, and the pointed way that Steve's leg was curling over her hip and the insistent heat of his erection against the small of her back, all the numbers added up to Steve having been up for at least an hour and a half, waiting to wake her up to a solid hour of Sunday morning fucking.   
  
She'd caught him at it once, however between her and the alarm clock with an expectant look on his face, and she would swear he was like a kid waiting for Christmas.  
  
Normally, this Sunday morning ritual put a smile on her face and started that heat burning in her belly that almost four years of him had done nothing to slake.  
  
Today, though, she jolted awake with a horrifying suddenness, threw herself out of the bed, and dashed for the bathroom, just in time to vomit up what felt like her stomach lining in to the toilet.  
  
She could hear Steve calling her name from the other room as she clutched the cold porcelein of the toilet, willing her stomach to settle without much luck.  
  
Shit. Goddam mother fuck.   
  
Her whole hiding her head in the sand about her period being a bit late plan was pretty much shot now. Steve was at his overprotective worst when she was sick, and she knew perfectly well he wasn't going to let her brush this off.   
  
She also knew perfectly well that she was already going to get an earful about how long she had kept her suspicions on this particular front to herself. Lord help her when he found out about that positive pregnancy test from last week that she was sort of hoping was a false positive.  
  
He knocked on the door softly, but pushed it open without waiting for her response.  
  
"Here," he said, kneeling beside her with a look of deep concern on his face that made her stomach crawl uncomfortably. Not so much with more nausea, but something more like guilt. He handed her a glass of water and carefully brushed her hair back away from her face. "drink this."  
  
She took a few careful sips to wash the foul taste out of her mouth and then set it aside.  
  
"I texted Gus," he said, "told him we couldn't make it."  
  
"Sorry," she got out in a scratchy voice.  
  
"Don't be," he said gently, his hand cupping the back of her head, his thumb pressing gently right at the spot on her neck where he knew she got tense. "You done? Wanna come back to bed?"  
  
She nodded weakly, but before she could push herself up, found herself swung effortlessly up in Steve's arms.  
  
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his soft, worn t-shirt as he carried her back to bed.  
  
This was going to suck.  
  
Why couldn't things just stay the same? Hadn't they had enough turmoil in thier lives? The universe couldn't at least wait until they decided to try for this?   
  
She let him fuss for a bit, helping her sit up against the pillows, tucking the blankets around her legs. He stretched out beside her, an arm around her shoulders so she could lean into his side.  
  
"Something you ate?" he suggested in a tone that reeked of falseness. Steve was a lot of things, but he wasn't great at things like casual or subtle.  
  
She blew out a breath. She wasn't particularly great at those things either. They seemed to rocket between keeping things to themselves for far to long and then just coming out with them with no kind of tact.   
  
"I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant," she finally said, looking down at her hands.  
  
She felt Steve tighten and tense beside her.  
  
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," she went on frantically, trying to talk herself out of the hole she had been digging for the past few weeks, "I know we talked about it, and I know you're worried about the serum even though Bruce said it would be fine, and I know it's not exactly the easiest decision in the world especially after the press found out about me last year and I know we said we were going to wait and I am totally freaking out. I don't know how it happened, and I was hoping it was just stress because work has been crazy and I didn't want you to worry over nothing, but then I took a test last week and it was positive and I didn't know what to do and I..."   
  
Steve cut off her rambling confession with a hand on her arm.  
  
"Darce," he said slowly, and she couldn't bring herself to look up at him, "can you roll back a few steps to that first bit?"  
  
"I'm pregnant," she said again, letting the words sink in.  
  
"And you took a test," Steve said.  
  
"Yes," she answered, something slow and heaving rolling down her spine that wasn't nausea or guilt at all.  
  
"And it was positive?" she was starting to get the idea, from the tone of Steve's voice, that this wasn't actually headed down the road she had expected.  
  
"Yes?" she said, tilting her head up to look at him out of the corner of her eyes. He was looking at her with a sort of stunned expression on his face, like maybe he had just been hit by a truck. "Steve?" she tried gently.  
  
"We're going to have a baby?" and she could see that kid on Christmas look of anticipation lurking somewhere in his expression again, and the huge knot of tension she had been carrying around slowly started to unwind.  
  
"Yeah," she said, a slow smile growing across her face, "I guess we are."  
  
Steve jumped up from the bed with graceless energy and started pacing around the room, "We'll have to get rid of the desk in the spare room," he started listing, "and this apartment is completely unsafe right now. We should really get doors on the kitchen cabinets, at least where all the glasses are, and cover up all the sockets..."  
  
"Steve," Darcy interrupted him with growing amusement. He ran a hand through his hair as he turned back to look at her, leaving it sticking up haphazardly. He looked overwhelmed in a way that made her heart to a slow and deliberate flip, because he was always so in control of himself around other people.   
  
He was completely out of control right now. Darcy felt a little bit validated for all her skittering avoidance of the past few weeks.  
  
"Pretty sure this little monster isn't going to bust out of here next week," she said, a hand settling over her still flat belly, "we've got some time to sort all that stuff out."  
  
Steve stopped in his tracks and turned to her, "you're calling our kid a monster already?" he asked her, an eyebrow raised.  
  
"You really think any child of ours is going to be all smiles and sunshine?" she asked with a grin. And for the first time the image of a child with Steve's blonde hair and big eyes and that shit eating grin of his hit her right in the gut.  
  
From the way the corner of Steve's mouth was pulling upwards, his thoughts were headed in a similar direction.  
  
"We're going to have a baby," he said. It was less of a question this time, a sort of dawning joy crossing his face. "Holy shit, we're having a baby." He fairly launched himself at her, dropping to her side on the bed, his big hands cupping her face as he pulled her into him and kissed her.  
  
She pressed back into him hungrily, her hands clutching his arms as she bit at his lower lip until he dropped his hands to her hips and swung back against the headboard so she was straddling him.  
  
From the way his pelvis was pressing up against her, one knee hitching upwards to keep her close, she could quite clearly tell that Steve was in a celebrating mood. She was really really on board with that.   
  
She was going to start blaming her hormones for the sort of wild mood swings that had her sure and certain that Steve was going to freak out at her to so full of happiness that she thought she might explode with it.  
  
"You're gonna be a dad," said Darcy, breathlessly pulling away to look down at him. "You're going to be such an amazing dad Steve." Jesus Christ, was she crying? She sniffed.  
  
He reached up to wipe the beginnings of dampness from under her eyes, "you okay?" he asked softly.  
  
"Yeah," she said with a watery smile. "Happy tears, hormones, whatever. Let's get back to the whole 'we're going to be parents' sex."  
  
Steve let out a muffled laugh as she bent her head to kiss him again, one hand snaking behind him to work under his t-shirt.  
  
"To be fair," Steve said, pulling aside her hair to reach the sensitive column of her neck, "I think we did that part already."  
  
"Oh my god," Darcy groaned, giving up on the preliminaries and pulling his shirt off over his head, followed quickly by her own. "You're going to tell the worst dad jokes. It's going to be so embarrassing."  
  
Steve grinned wickedly as he pushed down the boxers he slept in and tugged at her sleep shorts "I thought you found my jokes charming," he said as he managed to work a hand between her legs, two fingers finding her wet and ready core and making her gasp.  
  
"I'm the charming one," she managed to gasp out as her hips moved against him and her hand dropped to wrap around his erection.  
  
"Hello charming," Steve muttered against the skin of her collarbone as he turned her over onto the mattress and swiftly pushed her shorts down her legs, his hips settling against hers, the head of his cock against her entrance, "I'm Steve."  
  
If she let out a short surprised burst of genuine laughter at his really dumb joke before he pushed into her and made her forget everything else? Well, she knew Steve wouldn't tell on her. They made a pretty good team that way.


	8. Keep your stick on the ice.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A delightful anon prompted: Clint/Darcy hey takes her to a baseball game and he did not know she is a hugeee fan so when she stars yelling at the umpire and he starts to get a little turned on :P
> 
> I think my Canadian is showing, cuz I went with Hockey instead. But at least I picked an appropriate US eastern conference team...even though I'm still feeling hurt about the recent Rangers / Habs series.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it anyways!

"Absolutely not," Darcy walked into the kitchen in the tower to find a very familiar sight. Natasha was leaning against the counter, her arms crossed and a foreboding look on her face while Clint tried to get her to do something stupid.

"Come on Nat, it'll be fun!" Clint tried in an upbeat tone, "I thought you liked stuff on ice."

Natasha snorted, "The fact that you thought a mild interest in watching figure skating was indicative of an interest in ice hockey is sort of upsetting, Barton."

Darcy, who had been intent on slinking around them to the fridge, hoping to avoid any fallout, suddenly perked up. When she turned to look she could, indeed, see two tickets in Clint's hands, the Rangers logo clearly visible on the end.

"What!" Clint exclaimed defensively, as Darcy tried not to make it too obvious that she was trying to get a look at the section number as she absently foraged around the fridge for a snack, "It's an ice sport, people fall a lot, it's pretty much the same thing."

Darcy, lord help her better judgement, could not stifle the derisive noise that escaped her.

"Something to add there, Lewis?" Clint turned to her with a raised eyebrow.

Usually, Darcy found Natasha and Clint the most intimidating of the Avengers. She had become pretty accustomed to dealing with the rest of them, and would even hazard to go as far as calling them friends.

But Natasha was terrifying. And Clint? Well, it was hard to be particularly relaxed around a guy she had a very hard time not blatantly staring at every time he moved an arm.

She had no idea what was wrong with her. She'd gotten over the way Steve's ass looked in sweatpants, surely he could get over Barton's arms, and his big hands, and the way his smile made her think of whisky – well aged and all the better for it.

She found, though, that yeah, she did have something to add.

"Anyone who can't tell the difference between a slap shot and a salchow doesn't deserve..." she took a step closer, tilting her head to peer at the tickets, "Jesus Christ, centre ice tickets? Row 10? Where the hell did you even GET these?"

Clint looked at the tickets bemusedly, "Tony gave them to me, said he couldn't use 'em. Are they good?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I think I kind of hate you," she said.

Clint, the asshole, just grinned at her.

"Take Darcy," said Natasha suddenly. Darcy had almost forgotten she was there for a moment, freaking ninja, and just about jumped out of her skin.

"What? No!" Darcy exclaimed.

Natasha cocked her head and levelled a calculating look at her, "You don't want to go watch the game?"

"Well of course I do, but...."

"You have a problem with Barton?" she went on.

"Well, no..." she trailed off before she could say something stupid.

"Perfect," said Natasha, "he'll pick you up at 6:00."

"I...Bu...Wh...doesn't he get a say?" Darcy finally finished lamely.

Clint just shrugged at her, "S'fine with me," he said, but he was levelling a dangerous gaze at Natasha, his fists clenching in a way that made the corded muscles of his arms move smoothly under his t-shirt.

Darcy didn't exactly get their friendship. Also, she was screwed. She was going to waste the best Rangers tickets of her life staring at Clint Barton's biceps.

Well...maybe _waste_ wasn't the right word.

God, he was probably right to be a little steamed at being forced into attending the game with her. Dammit, he was giving her a weird look.

"See you at 6?" he said, with a raised brow.

"Uh, yeah. Okay," she said, before beating a hasty retreat back to her room.

She hadn't even managed to grab any snacks.

It wasn't even two minutes before there was a sharp knock at her door.

Darcy had kind of given up on figuring out what was going on with this day, so just said "come in" listlessly from where she was lying on her couch.

Natasha Romanoff was standing in her doorway. It was unprecedented.

"Uh...hi?" Darcy tried, pulling herself into a more upright position.

"What are you planning on wearing?" Natasha asked, and without preamble made an unerringly accurate b-line to Darcy's closet for someone who had never been inside her suite before.

She kind of felt like she was living in a piece of surrealist performance art.

"Probably my jersey?" she tried hesitantly, trailing after Natasha into her bedroom.

Natasha already had her home game jersey out of the closet and had tossed it on her bed. She turned back to Darcy with an appraising look. "You know the sport," she said.

It wasn't a question, but Darcy nodded anyways.

A positively wolfish grin crossed the other woman's face. "Good. Clint doesn't, but he's going to try and pretend he does."

"Are you telling me not to bruise his ego?" she asked incredulously.

"Not at all," said Natasha, tossing Darcy's skinniest pair of skinny jeans on the bed before turning to her vanity, "quite the opposite," she lobbed a tube of lipstick at Darcy, who saw it was her most vibrant red. "I'm suggesting that it's about time you showed him your true colors."

"Which are?" Darcy tossed over her shoulder as Natasha pushed her, along with the clothes she had selected, into the bathroom.

"A hell of a lot louder than he’s figured out yet," was all Natasha said through the door.

+

+

About two hours later, Darcy was forced to come to the realisation that she may have been totally wrong about Natasha. Oh, she was still terrifying, but Darcy wasn't entirely sure that Natasha wasn't being terrifying _on her behalf_.

Also, that woman had some truly top shelf vodka. Darcy didn't usually go in for vodka without something to mix it with, but she had found herself frowning as Nat refused to pour her a third drink.

"Drink at the game," she said in a no nonsense tone, "you're wearing those black boots of yours and I know they don't have great stability in the heel."

"How did you....you know what? Never mind," said Darcy, "you're scary, you know that right?"

Natasha raised an eyebrow, "and yet very few people ever have the nerve to say it to my face." Darcy wasn't entirely sure that Natasha wasn't hiding a grin.

She looked up at the clock on the wall, "I've got to go," she said, "enjoy the game." she paused at the door, "and try to relax."

It was good advice, because once Natasha and her whirlwind had walked out, and Darcy had taken a look at herself in the mirror, she finally caught up with the fact that Natasha had _dolled her up like she was going on a date_.

"Oh sweet merciful crap," Darcy exhaled and sank down on the couch. She was not relaxed.

At six on the nose, there was a knock at the door and Darcy stood there staring at it for far too long. She took a deep breath and tried to convince herself that this had all been some sort of weird Russian bonding thing and not Natasha skillfully setting her up on a date with Barton.

Darcy was pretty good at rationalising.

However, when she opened the door and found Clint standing there in an old Rangers T-shirt that fit him like a second skin under the black jacket that she had once privately confessed to Jane she would really really like to peel off of him, all of her rationalisation flew out the window and she felt exactly like the same gawky teenager who had gone out to a movie with a boy for the first time at 15, been so nervous that she spilled her drink all down the front of her, and hadn't shaken off the jokes about it until she left for college.

 

"Hey," she tried casually. Well, that had gone okay, "just let me grab my bag."

Clint blinked hard twice at her, "Uh...yeah." He sounded distracted, which wasn't really the best start.

"Didn't realise you were that much of a fan," said Clint as they walked from her suite toward the elevators, with a gesture at her jersey.

Darcy shrugged, "Family inheritance," she said with a grin, "What about you?"

"I suppose I know a bit about the game," he said casually, "end up knowing a bit about a lot of things in this line of work." She caught the ever so subtle hint of ego underneath it and smothered a grin, remembering Nat's comments.

An awkward silence fell as they entered the elevator.

Darcy felt like the fact that they'd never spoken more than five words to each other at a time was pressing down on them.

Darcy wasn't good at awkward silence.

"Listen," she said, "Natasha Romanov is an incredibly pushy person. I'd say we should just beg off and not go but a) I'm not sure she wouldn't poison me in my sleep and b) these are really really great tickets. So maybe we should just, I don't know, go with it? Do the whole hockey buddy thing?"

The elevator dinged and opened as they hit the lobby.

Clint turned to her and grinned a twisted smile that made her knees feel weak. "You got yourself a deal," he said, holding his hand out to her.

Darcy took it with a grateful smile, feeling the level of awkward dip like a physical relief.

"You're wrong about Nat though," he said as he held the door for her.

"She's not pushy?" said Darcy with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh no, she's incredibly pushy. But she wouldn't poison you in your sleep. She likes you," Clint finished.

"So she'd poison me to my face?" was the first thing that came to Darcy's mind and consequently out of her mouth.

Clint laughed out loud, "Yeah, she'd do you the courtesy."

"I feel both proud and scared," Darcy said wryly.

"That's about right," said Clint, "so what exactly are the terms of the whole hockey buddy thing?"

+

+

by the time they got to the Gardens, Darcy had clearly set out the importance of carefully timing the beer runs, protocol for yelling at stupid calls, and how he was definitely to dive in front of her if anything came over the glass.

She thought, maybe, that Clint hadn't really believed her about the yelling part though. Because when she stood up at a particularly poorly timed high sticking call and shouted "Come on ref, get your head out of your asshole and let the man make a shot," he gave her a very odd look.

"So when you say 'family inheritance',” asked Clint as the crowd quieted during the next stop of the clock, "you mean?"

"I would probably get disowned if I couldn't name the entire starting line-up."

"Ah," he said dryly, "so when I explained the off-side rule to you in the first period...?"

"Well, said Darcy, a little absently as the face-off formed to their left, "at least you were right about it...it was cute."

And then the puck dropped and she managed to forget about being really awkward, at least between whistles.

And then, "Oh COME ON," Clint hollered from beside her before she could get a good lungful going, "he was across the line MILES ahead of play. Get your fucking eyes checked."

"Nice," she said with some admiration, "you're learning."

"We should go see a ball game," said Clint, his eyes studiously tracking the puck, "I'm much more practiced at yelling at umpires."

"Wanna show off some actual sports knowledge, hey?" she said absently with a grin, relaxing back into her seat as the buzzer sounded for the end of the second period.

"Maybe," said Clint, rising to his feet. It was his turn to do the beer run, so at least he'd learned that, " I just like hanging out with you."

He slid out into the aisle without so much as looking back at her, which was for the best, because she was pretty sure her mouth was hanging open unattractively.

She pulled out her phone, intending to text Jane. Not that Jane was going to have any kind of helpful advice.

Instead she found a text waiting for her from Natasha, who had apparently very sneakily programmed her number into Darcy's phone.

"Is Barton behaving himself?" was all it said.

Natasha, Darcy decided, might be better on the advice part.

"Is this a date?" she texted back, glancing over her shoulder up the aisle to keep her eye out for Clint.

"You two are idiots," was what she got back.

So maybe not so much with the advice.

And then, "Ask him."

Darcy would have sent back a parting shot, but Clint was coming back with beer.

"Anything important?" he asked, nodding at her phone as she tucked it away and took the plastic cup.

"Nope," she said way too quickly.

 "Listen," he said, setting his own cup in the arm rest and turning towards her, "the thing is that Nat likes to meddle, and it's really hard to stop her when she's on a roll. I'm sorry she strong-armed you into this."

"Strong-armed me into what?" asked Darcy, blinking in confusion, "free tickets?"

Clint ran a hand through his hair, "Into this whole...bad set up..." he said, "I told her you weren't interested but she's..."

Darcy was really glad she had put her drink down, otherwise it would have been her fifteen year old first date all over again.

" _I'm_ not interested?" she squeaked out, "I thought that _you_...."

She was interrupted as the teenagers sitting to her right started hooting and one elbowed her in the ribs.

Darcy looked up and saw her own face on the giant scoreboard hanging above them. She was momentarily very very confused. And then she processed the "Kiss Cam" logo with a dawning feeling of horror.

She looked back at Clint with wide eyes.

He was looking at her with a sort of stunned look of surprise on his face. She thought maybe he hadn't even figured out the whole kiss cam thing yet. The whole thing couldn't have taken more than two seconds, but she felt like it was an agonisingly slow process, a weighing and balancing of all the ways she could be mistaken about this and all the ways it could go wrong even if she weren't.

And then she said "fuck it," potentially actually out loud, and leaned across the seat to tilt her face up to his and kiss him.

She couldn't even hear the crowd over the rushing in her ears, because she had sort of intended it to be a simple press of lips, to let him know that she was interested. But the minute she pressed into him, one hand came up to the side of her face, his fingers curling into her hair, and he was kissing her. The taste of him was in her mouth and his teeth were against her lips, and one of them was making a low noise that sounded ever so slightly filthy. Maybe it was both of them.

By the time they broke apart, the kiss cam had long since moved on.

"Uhh..." Darcy started awkwardly "so...that was..."

"Wow," she wasn't sure if Clint was finishing her half started sentence or was just a few steps behind her, but it was true either way.

"Yeah," she said, tentatively reaching out to wipe away a trace of red lipstick from his mouth.

They sort of just stared at each other for a moment. And then Clint leaned back in his chair, slung his arm around her shoulders like it belonged there, and said, "I'm going to kick Nat's ass when we get home."

"What for?" she asked, confused, "I mean, didn't we just..."

"Oh, don't get me wrong," he said smiling down at her fondly, "I'm glad she did something. Don’t know if I ever would have got up the nerve up on my own. I just wish," said Clint going on, "that she would have just _said_ that she thought I might have a shot, rather than planning this whole elaborate scheme."

"Oh," said Darcy grinning up at him, "Well Natasha doesn't strike me as someone who likes to take a straightforward approach."

"You’re not wrong," he said.

It was too tempting, that whisky smile of his just inches from her face, so she tipped her lips up to catch him in another kiss, this time for no one but themselves.

"You wanna go?" he said a bit breathlessly when they broke apart.

"What?" said Darcy, genuinely horrified, "It's 2 - 2 with 10 minutes left in the third, how can you even think of leaving?"

"Not gonna lie Darce,” he said with an easy grin, "I've been wanting to take you home since you first let out that really impressive stream of curses at the ref in the second period."

"It was a bullshit penalty," she said hotly without thinking...and then, "Oh..." she grinned, turning back to the game, heat creeping up her cheeks.

"Oh FUCK you," she hollered as the whistle blew on an icing call, "what is this, pee wee hockey? You're an asshole."

Clint blew out a low breath beside her.

“So,” he said, as the last seconds in the game ticked off the clock, “You wanna go find a western conference game on TV, yell some more?”

She could feel his breath against her ear as he leaned in to be heard over the crowd.

“Actually,” she said, “I was thinking maybe we could head home?”

“Yeah,” he said, “There’s some things we should probably talk about I guess.”

Darcy grinned wide at him as the last three seconds were counted off and the buzzer sounded. “We can talk tomorrow, princess,” she said pulling him to his feet, “It’s Friday night and the boys just won it. Let’s go drink beer and make out.”


	9. Defacing Military Property

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was this post by narutowiener floating around tumblr (http://seekoutstarlight.tumblr.com/post/104466945755/narutowiener-ahahahahhaa-my-friend-got-in) that said:
> 
> AHAHAHAHHAA MY FRIEND GOT IN TROUBLE FOR “DESTRUCTION OF GOVERMENT PROPERTY” GUESS WHAT SHE DID?? SHE GAVE HER HUSBAND A HICKEY. HER HUSBAND IS A MARINE, THE HICKEY WAS VISIBLE WHILE HE WAS IN UNIFORM, SO SHE GOT A CALL SAYING “YOU HARMED GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, DON’T DO IT AGAIN” I’M DYING
> 
> And then seekoutstarlight was like "someone fic this". So I did. The end. :)

"Lewis!" Coulson stormed into the lab in a fury, and Jane and Darcy jerked upright from where they were bent over their work.

Jane, quickly realising that she was not the one in trouble, immediately returned to it.

Traitor.

"Morning boss," Darcy said in a bright and falsely innocent tone. She wasn’t actually sure what she had done this time, but she was sure it was her fault.

"Were you or were you not aware that Captain Rogers had a press conference this morning?" Coulson ground out.

"Hey, I totally kicked him out the door on time this morning!" Darcy exclaimed indignantly. And then a slow grin crossed her face as she recalled the activities that had almost made Steve late.

"He got there three minutes before air time!" Coulson cut out in a cold rage.

Darcy rolled her eyes, inured to Coulson’s anger by repeated exposure. “Oh come on, it’s not like that man needs much hair and makeup.”

"He does," Coulson voice simmered, "when he has several very visible hickeys."

Darcy had the good grace to feel at least marginally sheepish. “Oops,” she said, “my bad. I’ll try to keep to less visible skin in the future.”

She was seriously worried that the vein in Coulson’s head was going to blow.

Coulson let out a long suffering sigh. “You are aware, of course, of the importance of discretion when we are trying to protect your identity and how difficult that becomes when Captain Rogers recieves uncomfortable questions about his appearance on national news?”

"Oh come on," Darcy shrugged, "like it comes as a surprise to America that Steve Rogers can get it."

A poorly muffled snort came from Jane’s lab bench.

Her raised a stern eyebrow “And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how important Captain Rogers’ media presence is in a post-SHIELD world?”

Darcy just gave Coulson a steady look. Both she and her boss knew how much Steve hated it when Coulson said stuff like that.

"However, despite how I might chose to respond, this is out of my hands."

Darcy blinked.

"You’ve been written up by the brass," said Coulson, handing over a very official looking envelope.

"For what?" Darcy exclaimed as she ripped open the envelope "is it a war crime to make out with my boyfriend now?"

"For defacing government property," Coulson managed with a straight face.

Sure enough, the thick, embossed paper in the envelope contained a formal censure from the U.S. military for defacing Captain Rogers while in uniform.

Darcy felt like writing a strongly worded letter about how maybe they should think about putting him in uniforms that were less pants meltingly hot if they wanted her to hold back.

She also felt like this letter was going to look really nice framed and hung in their kitchen.

She grinned.

"This is funny, Lewis?" asked Coulson warily.

"I’m just thinking about how pissed off Steve is going to be when he realises that the U.S. military considers him property."

She saw Coulson shoulders sink in defeat.

"He’s going to be covered in hickeys in public for a month isn’t he."

"I’ll try to talk him down to sex hair," said Darcy with a sunny smile, "just because I like you boss."


	10. Paperbacks and Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is for ms-betsy-fangirl who prompted: “I have had an absolutely shit day and could really use some happy Darcy/Steve (or Darcy/Steve/Bucky) fic in my life. Prompt: “Seeing someone reading a book you love is seeing a book recommend a person.”

“Morning Miss Lewis,” Steve greeted her, as he did every morning, while she filled two enormous coffee mugs from the SHIELD communal kitchenette, as she did every morning.

“Morning Cap,” she half mumbled back, keeping her eyes on her coffee. Again, standard operating procedure.

“Can I help you back to the lab with those?” he asked, carrying out his side of their little morning script.

“Next time I save the world over the weekend, you can carry the coffee,” she said, tossing him an absent sort of grin as she picked up the two mugs, Jane’s “Lab Rule #1: Never Lick the Spoon” mug in her right hand and her own “World’s Best Entry Level Employee” mug in her left.

It was the exact same thing that happened every morning. Oh sure, Darcy’s quip about why she wouldn’t let him carry the coffee varied day to day, but the substance of the interaction was always the same; which is to say, excruciatingly polite.

He kept waiting for her to comment on how he ended up in the kitchenette _exactly_ when she was fetching fresh coffee every morning, or why he was in the kitchenette on the opposite end of the building from where he spent most of his day.

But she never did.

He could tell, when he had first met her, that she was nervous around him; that sort of star struck energy that a lot of people had around him these days. He didn’t like it much, but most people he spent any amount of time with usually got over it reasonably quickly.

But it was going on six months now since he had first been introduced to Jane Foster’s lab assistant with the big eyes and wicked tongue and while she didn’t seem star struck any more, she also didn’t seem all that interested in getting to know him any better.

And he was very interested in getting to know _her_ better. So interested, in fact, that he went a good 10 minutes out of his way every morning to make sure he was there to see her.

However, he was beginning to realize that his traditional methods of being polite and saying hello weren’t going to get him anywhere. He needed a plan.

He knew, he _knew_ , that it was a bad idea. He could hear Nat’s voice in his head telling him to walk away. But lord knows Steve was practiced at ignoring good advice.

He crept down the hallway after her, letting her keep a turn ahead of him at all times. When she nudged open the door to Dr. Foster’s lab, he slipped around the corner and against the wall just next to window looking into the lab from the hallway.

“Caffeine incoming,” Darcy chirped, and he heard the clunk of the heavy ceramic on the metal lab bench.

“Captain hot pants there again this morning?” came Dr. Foster’s amused yet absent voice.

Steve had to work very hard to avoid banging his head against the wall as a flush crept up his neck.

“Shut up Jane, that was one time and I was very drunk,” Darcy’s voice ticked up sharply in tone.

Oh. Oh, that was interesting.

“And what about that time you called him Captain Abs? Or Captain Dream Boat? Or…”

“Okay Jane, I get it I get it. Yes, Captain Unobtainably awesome was there as usual.”

“I’m not sure that, statistically speaking, unobtainable men find some way to see you each and every morning.”

He really liked Dr. Foster. She was a fantastically smart woman.

He heard Darcy let out a sigh, “Look, I get what you’re saying Jane, I do. I’m not an idiot. But really, I promise you, it’s not like he’s there to chat me up. He says hi, I say hi, he asks if he can carry the coffee, I say no because he’s clearly only offering to be polite, and then I leave. That’s it. Nothing sexy going on.”

Steve was going to be circumspect about this, because he knew he wasn’t unbiased, but she did sound distinctly…disappointed about that last part.

“Okay,” said Dr. Foster in a no-nonsense tone that even Steve recognized as science mode, “so your hypothesis is that Captain Rogers is just being polite, doesn’t really want to walk you back to the lab so he can talk to you, correct?”

He heard a barely mumbled response that must have been positive.

“So test it. Tomorrow morning, say yes.”

There was a pause. “Jane…Jane did you just science my non-existent love life? We’ve talked about this!”

At this point, Steve decided that he had done enough eavesdropping for one day. Besides, he had some planning to do.

Unfortunately, it was all for naught as that afternoon the Avengers were called out on a mission and he didn’t make it back to New York until mid-way through the next week. It hadn’t been a particularly tough mission, just a long one, and Steve hadn’t had a chance to catch more than 20 minute naps here and there over the past five days, so he left his alarm off.

He realized, when he woke up and blearily blinked at the clock beside him, that this had been a mistake. He had slept right through Darcy’s morning coffee. And she would know that the Avengers had returned the night before. His stomach gave a lurch as he pulled himself upright and scrambled to get dressed.

Well, there was nothing for it but to go wait until her second coffee.

He stuffed a tattered paperback that he was reading into his back pocket and made his way down to the little kitchenette by the science labs.

Despite himself, he found himself lost in the novel. He had read it before, but it wasn’t all that often these days that he got the time to really immerse himself. So it wasn’t so much that he didn’t notice that someone had entered the kitchenette, it was that he didn’t quite connect to the fact that he was waiting for someone.

“You like Faulkner?” the surprised squawk of Darcy Lewis startled him out of his focus.

“Oh! What? Yes. I mean…Hi. Good afternoon Miss Lewis.”

Well he could hardly begrudge her the laugh she tried to hide behind her hand. It was hardly a poised response.

“Good afternoon Cap,” she replied, with a grin far wider than any he remembered. “So, why are you sitting in the kitchenette reading Faulkner at two in the afternoon?”

“Re-reading, actually,” he said, lifting the cover so she could clearly see the title of the book, _As I Lay Dying_. “The imagery mostly, I guess…the way he captures the…wait” he spluttered again. “That’s not what you were asking.”

“It wasn’t,” she agreed, but she was _looking_ at him with a very interesting expression, “but doesn’t mean I didn’t want to know.”

“Have you read it?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Yeah, it was a while ago now though. Don’t know how well I remember it. I loved _Light in August_ though.”

“Well take my copy,” he said, immediately handing it over.

She took it warily, opening it to the inner cover. “Oh my _god_ ,” she said, immediately dropping the book onto the table, “Oh jeez, sorry Captain, I didn’t mean to drop it, it’s just…”

He cocked his head at her, confused by her reaction.

“I mean…” she swallowed, “That’s a 1941 edition, that must be, like, the first paperback run. It must be worth a…is it…I mean is it _yours_?”

“Oh!” he said, finally understanding, “Yeah, Stark kept a pile of things that Howard…his father I mean…had kept. This old thing had been re-stitched already and would be nothing but dust by now if it wasn’t for Stark and his oxygen free storage facilities. It’s nothing special.”

He offered it to her again. “Take it. Books were meant to be read. Besides,” he ran a hand over the back of his neck, wondering if she could see how nervous he was, “it’d be nice to have someone to talk to about it, about stuff like this I mean.”

If she could tell, she didn’t let on. “Tony Stark not big on book clubs?” she asked, almost absently as she carefully took the book from him with an oddly reverential look on her face.

“Not exactly,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

“Well, I am…I mean, I’ll tell you what I think tomorrow at coffee, Captain.” He could see her retreating back into the distant and polite shell he was used to.

“It’s Steve,” he said, a little more eagerly that he would have liked.

“Right,” she said. And then she paused, and he thought he could see a flush rising in her cheeks.

“You know, you didn’t actually answer my question,” she said, pulling her lower lip between her teeth nervously, “about why you were here. One of those ‘I could tell you but I’d have to kill you’ things right?”

Steve took a steadying breath. “Not really,” he said, standing up from his seat at the table and sticking his hands in his pockets, “I was waiting for you.”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times and then finally asked “ _Why_?”

“Well,” he said, “I turned my alarm off and slept through your morning coffee run, and I knew that you’d know we’d come back, and I didn’t want you to think that…” he trailed off as he saw the look on her face.

She looked…annoyed.

“Sorry,” he began back pedaling quickly, “I didn’t mean to…”

“Oh!” she took a step towards him and put a hand on his forearm, bared by his rolled sleeves, and he could swear that the room filled with electricity, “No I just…Jane was right. She had a hypothesis and…never mind. She’s just _intolerable_ when she’s right about stuff.”

She trailed off, but he barely noticed because she was standing so close to him, and he could smell the light floral scent of her hair and see the light smattering of freckles across her nose.

The moment drew out for just a moment longer than could ever be explained away, and then Darcy cut her eyes away. “Coffee,” she said, “I should get back to Jane with the coffee.”

She turned to walk away, but Steve had finally gotten past all the polite exchanges and he wasn’t giving up just yet, “Darcy,” he stopped her, his hand wrapping around her narrow wrist, “I think you forgot something,” he nodded towards the two empty coffee mugs she had left on the counter.

“Oh, right,” she said, a little bit breathlessly, but she didn’t move. She was just inches away from him, looking up at him, and all it took was the tiniest little tug.

He could feel the flutter of her lashes as her eyes closed, just before he felt the exquisite softness of her lips under his, gently parted and velvet smooth.

It was chaste, as far as kisses went, and more of a promise of what could be than anything much in and of itself, but Steve felt it straight through to his toes. He was grinning when he pulled back, because he couldn’t help but do anything else. The answering smile on her face made a warmth start to grow up his spine.

“Can I carry the coffee for you this time?” he finally asked.

“Yeah,” she said with a grin, “you can carry the coffee Steve.”


	11. Who's Line?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> starlightafterastorm prompted Steve/Darcy "Kisses dream of lips like yours" and it sounded like such a line to me. And then this happened.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Darcy whispered into Steve’s ear as he helped her out of the back seat of a stretch limo and tucked her arm into his elbow so she could keep her balance in her long slinky skirt and perilously tall heels.

“Relax Darce,” Steve murmured at her out of the corner of his mouth as they made their way up the gala red carpet, “all you need to do is keep looking amazing and convince any observers that you actually don’t mind being all dressed up and hanging out with me and we’ll get in and out of here in no time.”

“Hey, I’m am _expert_ arm candy,” she whispered at him before flashing a practiced bright smile to a uniformed door man who took her coat, “It’s _you_ I’m worried about. You know I think you’re great Steve, but suave playboy on a date? Not exactly your M.O.”

“Hey,” he said, a bit stung, “I can be suave.”

She just raise an eyebrow.

“I’ve been practicing,” he finally said, somewhat grumpily.

“Clint wingmaning you at bars does _not_ count,” she whispered back, before turning into him as she saw their mark across the room.

“Course not,” Steve half snorted under his breath, nodding to let her know he’d seen the man as well, “Nat’s been teaching me.” He pulled her against his side to head toward the bar closest to the man they were following.

“Besides,” he went on, “haven’t gone bar crawling with Clint for a long time now.”

“So now you’re telling me you’re _rusty_?” she squeaked indignantly as they ordered drinks and moved to the far corner of the bar so they were only steps from their mark.

“ _Rusty?”_ he hissed at her. And then he locked an arm around her waist and, at in a full voice, positively _growled_ at her “Kisses _dream_ of lips like yours.” There wasn’t a person in the area who didn’t look up at the line, or who didn’t see Darcy wind up and crack him full across the face.

One lady in a floor length gold lame dress began applauding.

What no one, not even their target, noticed is how Steve managed to stumble back into their mark, nimbly pulling a flash drive from his suit pocket.

Darcy quickly turned on her heel, storming out of the party, Steve close behind with a hand against his cheek. They waited until they were safely back in the limo, the flash drive passed off to an agent in another car, before they let down their cover.

Darcy burst into peals of laughter. “Oh my _god_ Steve, ‘kisses dream of lips like yours’? Really?”

“It wasn’t _that_ bad,” Steve said, poking at his cheek as he looked at his reflection in the tinted windows. The red mark of her hand was already fading. “Quite an arm you’ve got on you there Lewis.”

“Awww, you can take it Cap, it’s really my hand that’s worse for wear.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” he said immediately, reaching out to take her right hand and gently examining it for injuries.

“I’m fine Cap,” she said, pulling her hand back from him.

There was an ever so slightly awkward pause as Steve shuffled back so his thigh wasn’t pressing against hers anymore and she tucked a piece of hair behind her ears.

“So was it really Nat who fed you that line?” she finally asked.

“I improvised,” he said with a grin and a shrug.

“Figured Nat wouldn’t have given you a clunker like that. You ever try that one on her?” she waggled her eyebrows at him.

“What? No! Of course not! She would _kill_ me!” Steve spluttered.

“Uh…but I thought…I mean, you don’t do the bar crawl thing with Clint anymore and…the “training” with Nat…I though that…” Darcy trailed off awkwardly.

“Oh, no no no, _god_ no.” Steve rushed to correct her, moving back into her space as he did as if to push the idea of any other woman in the world out. “Not that Nat isn’t…I mean…just. No. Really no.”

“You put enough nos in there Steve?” Darcy asked with a raised eyebrow.

Steve just shrugged.

“Any particular reason?” Darcy asked, almost hopefully, “I mean, she’s…and you’re…”

“Well…” Steve started shakily, “the thing is there’s this other girl. Hard to think about anything else when she’s in the room, you know?”

Darcy’s shoulder’s dropped and she leaned away from Steve into the window, “Ahhhh, makes sense. She must be something special Cap.”

Steve looked at her for a long moment and then squared his shoulders. “She is, although she doesn’t seem to know the half of it. I’ve known her for a while, but we didn’t really get to talking much until a few months ago. S’the reason I stopped going out with Clint because I never met a girl who could hold a candle to her.”

“So what’s the problem?” Darcy asked with an icy brightness in her tone, “Why haven’t you brought her around yet.”

“Well, for one thing I haven’t quite got the nerve up to make a move yet,” he said carefully.

“See, I told you you weren’t suave,” Darcy said with a hollow grin.

“Well that’s the other problem,” said Steve taking a breath, “She apparently thinks my lines are so terrible they’re worth a slap in the face.”

Darcy stared for a moment, gape mouthed, and then smacked Steve hard across the thigh.

“Oh my god Steve, you _idiot_!” she exclaimed.

“I…wha…what?” was all Steve managed.

“You see this face here, this one I’m making right now?” she pointed at her face that wore a fond yet exasperated expression he was very familiar with.

“Sure, that’s your ‘Steve’s being an idiot face’,” he said, “I swear, I didn’t mean to…”

“Idiot.” She interrupted him again, but this time her hand landed on his thigh and didn’t move. “I want you to pay very close attention,” she said, a grin she couldn’t seem to suppress pulling at her lips. “This is _not_ my ‘Steve’s being an idiot’ face.” She said.

“Oh?” was all Steve managed, swallowing past a sudden dryness in his throat.

“This is my ‘I wish Steve would stop being an idiot and kiss me’ face.” She finished, a flush creeping up her neck despite her bravado.

Darcy had been dead right that Steve was not particularly naturally suave, but he was pretty good at following orders, so long as they were good ones.

He slipped his hand against the side of her head, his fingers weaving through her carefully coiled hair and pulling it into disarray as his palm cupped her cheek. His other hand fell to her waist, firm but supple under the slippery material of her dress.

He paused for only a moment, “Darce…” his voice was low but sincere, “are you sure…”

Instead of answering, she rolled her eyes gripped his thigh with one hand and wrapped the other around his neck and leaned up to kiss him.

It was almost too much from the moment it started, the adrenaline of a successful operation, the thrill of discovering another person, and the infinite number of new futures opening between them driving their bodies closer, their mouths open, their hands to clutch and wander.

Steve pulled back with a gasp, his forehead falling against hers and their breath mingling in the darkened back of the limo.

“I take it back,” said Darcy, a bit breathlessly.

“Take what back,” said Steve, his hand tightening almost unconsciously on her hip.

“That was pretty suave.”


	12. Communication is Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So…Liebekatze left a lovely little comment on A Very Short Engagement suggesting that a certain two idiots should probably be truth gassed and maybe Natasha should really be carrying something of the sort in her purse. (comment thread can be found here http://archiveofourown.org/comments/49145161)
> 
> So my immediate reaction was “Well that would make my fics last about a page”. And then I wrote this.

“Hey Bucky,” Darcy tried to keep her voice casual as he walked into the kitchen post work-out, sweatpants slung low on his hips and tank top plastered against his chest. Bucky was her friend. Nothing more. Bucky definitely had no interest in anything more than friendship.

“Hey Darcy,” Bucky cut his eye sideways at her and smiled before turning his gaze away.

Damn. Had he caught her staring? He was probably mortified. She was sure her cheeks were blazing red.

Just then, Natasha let out a long suffering sigh from the entrance to the kitchen, walked straight up to the two of them, and sprayed them in the face with what looked like perfume but smelled like burning.

Darcy wrinkled her nose a sneezed. Bucky glared at Natasha. “What the hell Natalia,” he growled.

“James,” she said, “Please tell Darcy how you feel about her.” She said calmly.

“I can’t stop thinking about her,” he blurted out, spots of high color appearing on his cheek bones, “she makes me happy. I haven’t paid attention to a movie in weeks because all I can think about is kissing…”

“Stop,” said Natasha, holding up a hand, and Bucky snapped his jaw shut with a stunned look on his face.

“Darcy, how do you feel about James,” Darcy was getting very suspicious about what was in that spray bottle, because she could feel the words tumbling out of her mouth as hard as she tried to shove them back in.

“Whenever he’s around, I can’t concentrate on anything else. I wish he could see how kind he was, how loyal. And, oh my god, the way he looks in those sweatpants right now, I just want to….” she pulled herself to a stop, the effect of whatever Natasha had done wearing off.

“What in the HELL did you…” started Bucky.

“A very handy short term truth serum Bruce has been working on. Now will you two stop dancing around each other and make out already?” She swept out of the kitchen without a backward glance.

Darcy and Bucky stared at each other for a long moment.

“So…” Bucky started awkwardly, rocking in his heels. “The sweatpants? Really?”

“Shut up and kiss me you idiot.”


	13. Technical Difficulties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Response to a prompt from forever ago from nothorse on tumblr. Please have some very delayed fluff.

She had barely noticed when Steve walked into the common area of the Tower residences.

Okay, that was a lie. She had noticed with every fiber of her person because her Steve-dar was constantly set in the high end red zone due to her long standing unrequited crush on America’s favorite son.

But she was getting very good at pretending like she barely notice him. Even Natasha said so.

However, it was getting a bit harder to play it cool, because Steve had stopped directly behind her and she could _feel_ him looming.

She counted to ten slowly and then spoke in a carefully controlled tone without turning around. “Can I help you Cap?”

Bland politeness was her go to strategy with Steve. Because it was better than love-struck idiot. Also, probably appropriate for her de facto position as PA to the Avengers.

“It’s Steve,” said Steve, like he did each and every time.

But Darcy had a very hard time addressing him by his first name without getting one of those fully body shivers that made it difficult to stay professional. So yeah, she was sticking with “Cap.”

He went on excitedly, “Is that the new Stark pad?”

Darcy turned around, one eyebrow raised in genuine surprise, “Yeah,” she said, “Tony keeps me up to date.”

“Looks like he fixed the touch sensitivity issue,” Steve said, leaning over and experimentally scrolling up and down through the article she was reading. “Did he get rid of the multi-window lag?”

Darcy forced herself to breath. She could feel his body heat against her neck as he continued to poke at the tablet, and she could smell him, something like clean soap and a fleeting sweetness she couldn’t quite place.

“Uhhh…” she mumbled stupidly, before catching herself, “yeah, the processing power has really been upgraded.”

He looked over at her and, as if just realizing how close he was, he stepped back quickly. Darcy swore she could see a faint pink blush creeping up his neck.

He stood there in awkward silence for a moment.

“Would you like me to request one for you?” she asked, retreating behind her professional mask, “I would have already if I had known that you….” She trailed off. She wasn’t quite sure how to finish that sentence without being at least a little bit insulting.

It was her own fault. She knew perfectly well that Steve functioned just fine in the modern world. She shouldn’t have assumed that new tech would be too much for him.

“If you had known that I had figured out how electricity works?” he teased with an amused grin.

Darcy shrugged a bit helplessly, “I’m sorry Captain, I’ll make sure that, in the future, you get…”

Steve cut her off, “Darcy,” he said, looking ever so slightly frustrated, “I’m teasing.”

“Oh,” she said stupidly, “sorry Cap…”

Steve let out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, “Are you ever going to call me Steve, or am I just pounding sand here?”

The expression on his face, one that she didn’t know that she had seen before, sent her heart leaping up into her throat. She had spent a lot of time carefully cataloguing Steve’s expressions. He was always very carefully controlled around her: friendly, but always unfailingly polite. With the others, he had an easiness about him. He was quick with a joke, had an easy physicality with his friends, and could be a bit of troll when he felt like it.

She had always assumed that he was simply treating her like an assistant rather than a friend; responding to her distance with his own.

But the way he was looking at her now, with frustration, and something that might have been…longing… She was wondering if she had entirely the wrong end of the stick.

“I thought…” Darcy swallowed, turning her chair to face him, “I thought you were just being polite.”

Steve’s hands clenched nervously at his sides, and he shoved them in his pockets. “Well,” he said slowly, “I was. But not in the way you think.”

Darcy blinked at him in confusion.

“That’s…I mean, that’s how you’re supposed to treat a girl, I mean a woman that you…” Steve sputtered awkwardly, and Darcy could definitely seek the blush creeping up his neck now.

Darcy could feel her heart trying to beat out of her chest. She resisted the urge to pinch herself.

“So you were being polite…because you…like me?” she winced as her voice cracked over the last two words.

Steve nodded.

“But…” Darcy couldn’t help herself, “you’re so casual with everyone else. You’re never comfortable like that with me.”

She was looking up at him, looking at him openly in a way she had consistently avoided up to this point. Because she was sure that Steve could see the barely believable hope on her face.

He grinned, tentative but growing surer, “Probably because it’s hard for me to be around you without thinking about kissing you. Makes _casual_ pretty tough.”

“Oh,” said Darcy, stunned. Watching Steve be casual and comfortable with the others from a distance had been one thing, but having Steve be _comfortable_ at her while calmly talking about kissing her was something else entirely.

She stood up abruptly. “Well, you should do that,” she said awkwardly.

“Yeah?” he asked with a grin, stepping in towards her.

“Yeah,” she breathed, as his hand slipped into her hair, and he dipped his head, and he _kissed_ her.

She briefly thought about how they were out in the common area, and anyone could walk in at any moment, but she could not bring herself to care as Steve’s other hand fell to her hip, pulling her closer, and he licked between her parted lips, his teeth dragging against her lower lip.

He broke the kiss, only to drop his mouth to her neck, sucking gently against her collarbone.

“ _Steve_ ,” she breathed.

He stopped, dropping his forehead against her shoulder and letting out a chuckle.

“What?” she said, mildly indignant.

“Finally,” he said.

And she realized that she had, without really thinking about him, finally called him by his name.

She grinned, “was it worth the wait?” she asked him, as he lifted his head to look at her.

“Definitely,” he said, tucking a strand of her mussed hair behind her ear. He leaned in to kiss her again, short and simple, but still toe curling.

“So,” he said, “Can I take you to dinner?”

“Absolutely,” Darcy agreed with embarrassing alacrity.

“One more thing,” he asked, as he dropped an arm around her waist, pulling her to the elevator, apparently intent on taking her out to dinner _immediately_. Darcy had no objection. The sooner they had a real date, the sooner he could take her home.

“Yeah?” asked Darcy, leaning into his side, feeling somewhat unsteady on her feet from the nearness of him.

“I still want that new Stark Pad.”

Darcy laughed out loud. “You got it Cap.”


	14. Waiting for the Parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for ehonauta on tumblr who asked: Prompt: Darcy/Bucky (or Darcy/Bucky/Steve, if you roll that way), Coney Island Mermaid Parade!

“….used to be so easy,” Darcy hear the low voice of Bucky coming from the kitchen as she moved into the tower’s open lounge.

“I think you’re making it harder than it is,” Steve sounded both amused and frustrated with his friend.

It was so much nicer that the pain fest that had been Steve and Bucky’s relationship when the former assassin had first arrived at the tower.

It had been more than a year now, and while Darcy didn’t really know Bucky all that well, she could clearly see that he and Steve had found a balance.

“I’m not…” but Bucky cut off immediately, and he appeared from within the kitchen at once.

Spies. Impossible to sneak up on them.

“Hey Bucky,” said Darcy brightly. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” he said, somewhat defensively, sticking his hands in his pockets. Darcy had been waging a one woman war against Bucky’s awkward distance around her for months now, ever since he started going on missions with the Avengers, and Darcy was pretty sure he wasn’t going to go haywire and attack her or anything.

It was a Sisyphean task. It seemed like the friendlier she tried to be, the more awkward Bucky became around her. And, unfortunately, the more her initial goal of friendship shifted slightly. He was very nice to look at, okay? And when he wasn’t being awkward at her, he was smart, and charming, and well read, and….alright. She had a giant crush. She wasn’t too proud to admit it. Wasn’t much of a point to it though, as she didn’t think he’d ever said more than ten words together to her.

Steve walked into the lounge after him. She got the impression that Steve was running a second front in the war to help Bucky make friends. She grinned at him in greeting.

“Actually,” said Steve, “Bucky was just talking about making a trip to Coney Island, but I’m tied up with public appearances this weekend and it’s no fun to go alone.”

Bucky glared daggers at Steve, who was smiling back at his friend as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

“Oh right!” said Darcy, “It’s the close of the season this weekend isn’t it? I’ve never been for the parade.”

“The parade?” asked Bucky with open curiosity, and then as if he immediately regretted it, he ducked his head and didn’t pursue the question.

“It used to be they would close out the season with a mardi gras celebration in our day,” explained Steve, “I gather that things have changed?”

“Yeah,” said Darcy, pulling out her tablet, “they do a mermaid parade.” She pulled up some online photos. “Apparently it’s supposed to be awesome,” she glanced sideways at Bucky who was sidling over to take a look. “Although,” she said with a conspiratorial grin at Steve, “it’s supposed to be a bit scandalous. Might be too much for your old timey sensibilities Barnes.”

Bucky scoffed, “I think I can handle it Doll,” and Darcy grinned in success. Every so often, she got through his awkward politeness to see a bit of the real Bucky Barned.

“Great,” she leapt on the opportunity, “so we’ll go on Saturday?”

“I…” Bucky swallowed heavily, “I’m not…” and then he turned and walked out of the room.

Steve sighed deeply after he left.

“It was a valiant effort,” he said to Darcy. “I almost thought you had him for a moment.”

“So close, and yet so far,” said Darcy with a roll of her eyes. “What does that guy have against me?”

“Against you?” asked Steve incredulously, “you mean you don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” Darcy questioned.

Steve got a look on his. A very familiar and very dangerous look. It was the sort of look that meant Steve had a capital P Plan in mind, and someone was going to fall victim to it. The last time Darcy had seen that look, she and Clint had been the victims of a literal glitter bomb. It was retaliation for the time they had bedazzled the shield, so they had probably deserved it, but Darcy had been cleaning glitter out of places she chose not to mention for weeks.

“Steve,” Darcy said warningly, “Whatever you are thinking of doing, I need you to stop.”

“Trust me,” said Steve with a very not reassuring grin, and he marched purposefully from the room.

Darcy forced herself to put Steve and his Plans out of her mind for the rest of the day. She had work to do.

She had been so busy and focused all afternoon down in the labs, that she wasn’t on alert the way she otherwise might have been.

So she only had time to let out a squeak of surprise when she was unceremoniously picked up by the waist, dumped into a small boardroom, and locked inside.

“What the hell!” she hollered to the figure she could see on the other side of the frosted glass in the door.

“I’ll unlock the door when Bucky tells you why he didn’t agree to go to the parade with you,” came Steve’s voice.

Darcy whipped around, looking behind her, and saw an irate Bucky Barnes propped against the table in the small room, glaring daggers at the door.

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Darcy used her best no nonsense door, “You will open this door right now because we are not twelve years old.”

“Could have fooled me,” came Steve’s amused voice, “based on all the ridiculous games you two keep playing.”

“Steve,” she started, but he cut her off.

“30 minutes,” he said, “and I’ll be back to unlock the door, or at least bring you stubborn mules something to drink.”

She heard him walk away and let out a loud sigh.

“Your friend Steve is a real jerk,” she said, turning to Bucky who was still looking at the door with murder eyes.

“Yeah,” said Bucky tightly, not looking at her.

“You don’t need to tell me,” said Darcy gently, “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to want to hang out with me.”

He looked at her abruptly with surprise, “What?” he said.

“Look,” she said, feeling uncomfortable and a little warm under the direct attention of his gaze, “I don’t know what Steve thinks he’s accomplishing, but if you don’t want to go to the parade with me, you don’t. You don’t owe me any explanation.”

He looked at her with wide eyes. “He was right,” he said incredulously, “You really don’t know, do you?”

Darcy raised an eyebrow at him, “you know, I’m going to run out of patience for you and Steve calling my an idiot eventually.”

“No,” he said with feeling, taking a step towards her, “you’re not an idiot. I am.” He sounded certain and…forceful, in way that was _doing things_ for Darcy. She swallowed heavily.

“And why is that?” she asked carefully.

“I thought you knew how I felt,” he said, and there was a faint awkwardness to it, but he was also moving towards her steadily, moving with the lanky grace of a big cat.

“I thought you were being polite about it, settin’ me down by making it clear you just wanted to be friends. And I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t figure out how to just be your friend,” he voice was a low rumble, growing more confident with every step.

She swallowed heavily, not sure if she wanted to back against the door or run at him. “I didn’t…” she swallowed past a sudden dryness in her throat, “I didn’t know that.”

“Well now you do,” Bucky said, stopping just in front of her, close enough that she could see his heartbeat, pulsing rapidly in his neck. “You gonna set me down?”

He looked calm and confident, standing there in front of her, but she could hear the way his breath was coming quickly, and see the way his hands clenched beside him.

He was nervous.

She grinned up at him, “No,” she said steadily, “I’m not.”

The smile that burst across his face was almost dizzying to behold, but she didn’t have long to appreciate it because he was stepping into her and pulling her hard against his chest.

She grinned against the fabric of his shirt, breathing in the way he smelled, the way it felt to be pressed against him, his big hands strong and solid against her back, his fingers toying with the ends of her hair.

“Thank god,” he said finally, his voice muffled against the top of her head. “I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.”

She made a very unlady like sound of disbelief against his chest. “You know, you really are the idiot in this situation,” she said, unwilling to move out of his tight embrace for the moment.

“I’m sure you’re right,” said Bucky with a drawling humor, “but why, exactly?”

“I can’t believe you, a super spy, didn’t pick up on my hopeless crush,” she said. And it felt easy to admit with her thumbs tucked into his back pockets.

“Yeah,” said Bucky, pulling back from her and tipping her chin up so he could look at her, “That was pretty stupid move.”

“Thankfully,” said Darcy breathlessly, “there’s something you can do to make it up for me.”

“Anything,” he murmured, tipping his face towards hers.

“I want,” she said, rolling up on her toes until she was inches away from his lips, and she could see him swallow heavily, “you to take me to the mermaid parade on Saturday.”

He blinked for a moment in surprise, and then dropped his head back and laughed out loud. “Whatever you say, mischief,” she said with a grin, his fingers under her chin so she couldn’t duck away as he leaned down to kiss her.

Not that she wanted to get away. She though, somewhat hazily as sparks thrilled up her spine and Bucky’s lips moved against hers, that she could kiss him forever.

It was probably 20 minutes later when they were interrupted by the door opening, an amused an unsurprised Steve Rogers observing their kiss swollen lips and mussed hair.

“Get lost Rogers,” said Bucky calmly, and turned back to what he was doing, which appeared to be giving her a series of hickies along her neck which would not be explainable tomorrow.

She grinned somewhat helplessly at Steve as he mouthed “you owe me” to her before leaving and closing the door behind him.


	15. Shake It Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was actually not a tumblr prompt. It was a self prompt, if that's a thing. I started writing it, like, years ago and just never finished it. I mean, its arguable that we could call this "finished" even now, but it's as finished as its gonna get! Hope you enjoy :)

She’d been living her life like it could end at any moment for the last two weeks.

Living in the Avengers tower was usually a busy, noisy, whirlwind sort of affair.

Right now, she wouldn’t be surprised if a tumbleweed rolled lazily down one of the impeccably well-appointed hallways.

Radio silence, no news, no contact, not even FRIDAY had anything.

It was bad, was the bottom line. Nothing good ever came of this much silence.

The ultimate downside of being Lewis, Darcy SHIELD agent level 2 was the level 2 part.

Jane’s disappearance had been like stepping down the last stair in the dark and finding out that the floor was gone. And shortly after that, all of her roommates took off after her.

Apparently “Hawkeye usually makes scrambled eggs for me on Saturdays” is not any kind of justification to hack level 6 security feeds.

She considered trying “I’ve accidentally fallen in love with Captain America and really need to know if he’s going to die before I can tell him,” but she didn’t think that was going to sway Coulson either. He had his resolve face on.

She tried soldiering through for a few days, she tried being the strong and silent type, but her fingernails were bitten to the quick and she hadn’t eaten a solid meal in three days, so she was trying a dance party.

At least she had control over her playlist, if not the rest of the universe.

The rest of the universe could have timed things better, but she wasn’t about to ask for a redo, because in the middle of shaking it out, her hand was pulled right off the panic button by a polite cough from a tired looking but legitimately alive Steve Rogers at her door.

She didn’t pause for whatever he was about to say about her open door dance party, she didn’t pause to consider that maybe she should try to play it cool, she just threw herself at him with a very uncool chocking sort of gasping noise.

“Hey,” he said in a low concerned voice that rumbled through her from where she was pressed against him like a leech, “Hey now, what’s all this?”

She managed to gather herself enough to pull away, wiping the dampness away from her cheeks, “What’s all this? You guys were incommunicado for _two weeks_. Is everyone okay? Is Jane…?”

“Everyone is fine,” he said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “Jane is going to be alright. She’s a bit banged up and they’re going to keep her in medical overnight, but you should be able to see her in a few hours.”

“And you?” she asked, finally taking in the yellowing bruise on his cheekbone and the stiff way he was holding himself, “are you alright?”

“I’m just fine, sweetheart,” he said with a grin, “or at least I was until I got tackled.”

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, putting a bit of distance between them like she always did, “I was just so…worried,” the word fell far short.

“So, you decided to…dance?” he was looking at her with a focus that was making her palms sweaty.

“I’ve been building up a lot of stress,” she said defensively.

“It’s a good song,” Steve said as the track wound to a close.

She walked over to her ipod dock to stop the playlist before it blasted the next song. The silence felt oppressive.

After the silence had drawn out to the point where it was getting uncomfortable, Steve said “They really didn’t tell you anything for two weeks?” He was looking at her with an expression that confused her, standing there in her doorway looking like he hadn’t been sleeping any more than she had. Usually his expressions were so controlled. But this? This was…not.

“Not a thing,” she said vehemently, “I was preparing my eulogies, to be honest,” she said with a short, sharp laugh. It wasn’t exactly untrue.

“What were you going to say about me?” He took a step forward, bringing him just inside her door that still stood open, and a step closer to her.

It suddenly occurred to Darcy that Steve had come to find her before Clint, before Natasha, before Thor, and all three of them she would generally consider closer friends. Mostly because she doesn’t spontaneously drop things in their presence as a result of accidentally imagining them naked. Well, maybe Nat once or twice.

“I…” she started, and then took a breath, and chickened out, “probably something about the chorus girls.”

“Fitting,” he said, but his grin was tight, his expression suddenly closely controlled again.

“Steve,” she said suddenly, unwilling to let that be his legacy, “I’m….I’m really glad you’re alive.”

“Me too,” he was trying to make light, but she saw the real fear of it in his eyes. And the tightness still rode across his shoulders like a yoke.

“You wanna dance it out?” she asked.

“What?” he looked genuinely surprised.

“Whatever it was that kept you guys snowed under for two week, no I know you can’t tell me anything about it, but I know it must have been bad.”

“Yeah,” he said, settling against the door frame heavily, “it was bad.”

“So I’m trying to distract you,” she said with a tentative smile, “with dancing.”

“Darce,” he said, taking a step towards her, “I don’t want to dance.”

She felt like she could almost hear the “with you” tagged onto the end of that sentence.

“Sorry,” she said, withdrawing into herself, “I didn’t mean to…”

Steve let out a frustrated noise, “That’s not what I meant,” he took another step towards her. “I’m not good at…dancing, and I’m not looking for a distraction. I need to tell you something.”

She felt a little like she was on a roller coaster, her stomach dipping like she was hurtling off a cliff. Was everyone really alright? What could Steve possibly have to tell her that made those little worry lines at the corner of his eyes pull tight?

“Okay,” she said tentatively. “Do you…want to come in?”

Steve looked behind him, as if surprised by the fact that he was only two steps in from her door, which still stood open. He closed it quietly, and Darcy perched awkwardly on the arm of her sofa as he turned back to her.

“It was…Darce, it was a really bad one.” He let the words with a low tumbling breath, looking at her in that direct, uncontrolled way he had before. “There was a minute there when I thought I…”

He paused, looking at her in something like alarm. She was sure her eyes were round as saucers and she could feel the blood draining out of her face. She stood up abruptly, suddenly unable to sit, noticing the careful way he was holding himself.

“I’m fine,” he reassured immediately. “I promise I…”

Darcy wasn’t about to take him at his word, not when she could see that hollowness, the sort left by real, earth shaking fear, in his eyes.

She closed the distance between them, waiting only a moment for his nod of permission before she lifted the hem of his shirt.

She sucked in a sharp breath. The bandage about his ribs showed fresh blood seeping through, and she could see the ring of deep, ugly bruises spiralling away from the edge.

“Steve,” she breathed, “you should be in the hospital.”

“I should be here,” he said firmly, pulling her hands away so that his shirt fell over the bandage again, but not releasing her hands from his.

She looked up at him in surprise.

“All I could think,” he said unsteadily, “was that this could be it. And I never got up the nerve to tell you.”

She felt like lightening was running down her spine. The way his warm hands covered hers, the way there was barely an inch of space between them, the way he was looking at her, his pulse jumping in his throat. She knew what he was saying, but she asked anyways, needing to hear the words before she would believe it.

“Tell me what?” she said, closing the gap between them, their joined hands at their sides, he face tilted up to his.

The worry on his face disappeared and a small but genuine smile that she had never seen on his face before teased the corner of his lips.

He didn’t say a word, just ducked his head to press his lips to hers.


	16. The Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For nessismore, who only had to wait, like, two years to get her prompt filled and then beta'd her own prompt response. I'm the worst friend :p

The first time he walked into the communal kitchen and saw Darcy sitting there with a series of letters spread out in front of her, he didn’t think much of it. He knew that she liked the background noise of the common areas of the Avenger’s tower when she needed to focus on something.

It gave him a warm and comfortable sort of feeling, knowing her that well.

He didn’t really remember the first time he’d officially met Darcy. She had just sort of gone from being a figure on the periphery of his life, an occasional run in at public events and that sort of thing, to an everyday presence.

When he’d finally remarked upon it, Natasha had looked at him as if he were crazy and told him that she’d moved into the tower three months ago when she started law school at NYU.

Once he had this information, he did start to feel pretty stupid that he hadn’t picked up on it before. He often said hello to her in passing as she was holed up in comfortable chair by the window, nose deep in heavy textbooks.

Little by little, without much effort on either of their parts really, they went from being acquaintances to friends, and from friends to something more trusted and integral than that.

So he knew the focused look on her face well, and didn’t interrupt her as he filled his coffee cup and left the room.

++

When he came back into the kitchen a few hours later looking for something to eat and found her in exactly the same position, he raised his eyebrows at her, but got no acknowledgement, so he just shrugged and moved on.

++

The third time, he was there purposefully looking for her. The focused look on her face was progressing through to worry, and something like panic.

Without a word, he swung himself into the chair directly across from her, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at her expectantly.

After a few silent minutes she let out a sigh. “Yes Steven, I see you there with that look on your face.”

“Well?” he prompted expectantly.

“These,” she said with a halfhearted sweep of her hand at the letters on the table, “are job offers.”

“Darce,” Steve settled back against his chair, his underlying worry that something was truly wrong fading away, “that’s amazing! I mean,” he said with a grin, “not surprising, but amazing.”

She shrugged non-comitally.

“So,” he prompted gently, “you want to tell me why…” he counted briefly, “eleven job offers is making you look like the world is ending?”

“Because it _is_ ,” she burst out, letting her head drop into her hands.

Steve could see the exhaustion in the line of her shoulders, and he itched to reach out to her. But they were never very physical with each other. Steve was always achingly conscious of not crossing that line. Darcy’s friendship was too important to him to ever put it at risk that way.

“Hey,” he said gently, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, her voice muffled in her hands, “Everything is going to change.”

Steve felt a little lurch in his gut, “Are…are none of them in New York?” he asked apprehensively.

He didn’t like the thought of Darcy not being in the tower anymore, not seeing her sitting in what had quickly become _her_ chair by the window, not seeing her rumpled and warm from sleep on weekend mornings lounging on the couch. Not being there waiting for him when he came back from a mission.

“Some of them are,” she said, “but the one I really want is in Boston.” Her head was still hidden in her hands, and he wanted desperately to see her face.

“It that…” he swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, “is that a bad thing?”

“It’s terrible Steve,” she said, finally, “because I’m not going to _take_ it.”

She looked angry, and maybe at him.

“Why not?” he asked, stunned.

“Because I can’t leave New York. I should leave New York. The healthy, adult, grown up thing to do would be to leave New York to take my dream job, but no. Of course I’m not going to do that. I’m going to stay here and keep dying a little bit inside every day.” About halfway through this rant, she stood up and started pacing the kitchen.

Bewildered, Steve got to his feet and stepped around the table towards her.

“Darcy,” he said steadily, “I can see that you’re really upset about something here, and I want to help, but you gotta give me a clue here.”

She let out a frustrated noise. “You know,” she said, “it really would be a lot easier if you weren’t so hopelessly clueless.”

“About _what_ ,” he exclaimed, with more force than he intended, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. But he was starting to freak out a little bit here. Darcy was normally soothingly level and warm in a tower full of people who were neither of those things.

“About _you_ ,” she said, but she sounded more resigned than upset now, “I’m going to turn down my goddam dream job because I can’t stand the thought of leaving you, even though I know you don’t…” she trailed off, the color draining from her face as if she hadn’t intended to say any of that. She turned away from him, her arms tightly wrapped around her.

Steve’s mind was whirling at an alarming rate. He could be pretty unobservant at times, but he was not an idiot. He knew what she was saying.

And all of a sudden, that line that Steve had drawn for himself long ago seemed incredibly unimportant, and everything that had been behind it swelled up in him, setting a grin on his face. It made things incredibly easy all of a sudden.

“You know,” he said easily, taking a careful step towards her, “there’s no reason I really need to be in New York. Tony’s got property in Boston. And I’m pretty sure phones and computers work there too.”

Darcy whirled around to look at him, her mouth opening and closing a few times.

Steve looked back at her, feeling calm and certain, more than he had in years.

“You…you want to go to Boston?” she finally asked incredulously.

“Sure,” he shrugged easily, “why not?”

She tilted her head curiously at him, and then a look of resignation settled across her face.

“You still have no idea do you?” she said, mostly to the ceiling rather than him, “and you’d come anyways.”

He smiled at her fondly for a moment, she always did have a hard time believing that she deserved the good things that came to her.

“Darcy,” he reached out and caught her hand, “I may be a little clueless sometimes, but I hope I’m not that far gone.”

She looked down at their joined hands in something like confusion that was slowly transitioning into something else.

“Really?” she said with a level of disbelief that Steve really didn’t like and was determined to wipe from her mind as soon as possible.

So instead of answering, he tugged on her hand until she stood only inches in front of him, and he tucked her loose hair behind her ears, and he bent to kiss her.

It should have been strange and new, but instead it felt natural to be surrounded by her soft scent, to feel the shape of her, that he knew so well by sight, pressed against him.

When he finally pulled back, she blinked at him for a moment, and then promptly pummeled him in the chest with a closed fist.

“Oh my god, you total idiot jerk!” she exclaimed. But it was hard to take offense at her words, because she was smiling like it would split her face in two.

“Okay,” he said evenly, wrapping the offending fist in his own, “but why this time?”

“Three years Rogers! Three years!” she said in exasperation, but he could still feel her warm and close.

“Three years?” he asked distractedly, as he traced a finger down a pale line of freckles that ran across her cheek.

“You’ve been a _little_ clueless for _three years_!”

That drew his attention.

“That long?” he looked at her in surprise, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you’ve always been so clear about the Line,” he could practically hear the capital L in her tone, “so I assumed you weren’t interested in crossing it.”

He let out a short, self-deprecating laugh. “I really am stupid,” he said, bending to kiss her quickly again, because he couldn’t help it. “I thought if I ever crossed the Line, I would lose the best friend I’ve ever had. So I never did.”

“You’ll have to work harder than that to get rid of me,” said Darcy, smiling at him now as her arms wrapped around his waist.

“And what does it take to keep you?” he asked, feeling bold at the feel of her soft hips under his hands.

“Come to Boston with me?” she asked, a little tentatively.

“Done,” he said without hesitation.

“Kiss me again,” she said, with more certainty this time.

It was not a hardship to oblige, her lips parting under his with a low sound in the back of her throat that Steve had never heard before and wanted to her a thousand more time.

“Take me to bed,” she said breathlessly, after he pulled away.

Three years, Steve thought to himself, was enough waiting as far as he was concerned.

“Thought you’d never ask,” he said with a grin and a wink, before catching her about the waist and tossing her over his shoulder, just to hear her shriek in delight.

“You know,” she said, propping herself half upright with an arm against his back as he hurried down the hall, “we’d have a lot of explaining to do if we…” she stopped as Steve came to an abrupt halt.

“Natasha,” he said evenly.

Darcy twisted around and gave a little upside down wave from behind Steve.

“Steve,” said Natasha evenly, “Darcy.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Please,” said Natasha with mock politeness, “carry on.” She stepped out of the way and swept a hand ushering them forward.

Steve walked on sedately. He knew full well that she intended them to hear her muttered remark of “ _Finally_.” as they passed.

Darcy let out a snort of suppressed laughter, and by the time they made it to Steve’s room, his ribs were sore and tears were streaming down Darcy’s face.

He tossed her from his shoulder onto his sofa, her brown hair spreading across the cushions in a cloud.

And all of a sudden, it didn’t seem so funny.

He settled above her, their legs intertwined, his weight supported on his arms, caging her on either side.

“Steve, this is…” she started, looking up at him with her big brown eyes.

“Important,” he finished. “I know.”

“I mean, it’s not just some…”

“Darcy,” he cut her off, because he knew when she was about to go on a babbling rant. That warm feeling of comfort and familiarity stole over him again. “It’s me,” he said simply, looking at her steadily, reminding her that she already knew she could trust him with her, that he would never let her fall.

She smiled, a lingering thread of tension seeping out of her. He could feel her warm and soft beneath him. “Even better,” she said. “It’s us.”

 

 


End file.
